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''I!!!'"!' 'III"!!"''!" 

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"..KOUGK    KOtiEKS    Cl.AKK. 

From  a  portrait  by  Jarvis,  said  to  be  from  life. 


A  History 


of  th< 


Mississippi  Valley 

From  its  Discovery  to  the  End 
of  Foreign  Domination. 


The  Narrative  of  the  Founding  of  an  Empire,  Shorn  of 

Current  Myth,  and  EnHvened  by  the  Thrilling 

Adventures   of    Discoverers,   Pioneers, 

Frontiersmen,  Indian  Fighters, 

and  Home  Makers. 


John   R.  Spears 

Author  of''*  Oold    Diggings  of  Cape  Hortiy"  '' History  of  Our  Navy, ^'    ''Our 
Navy  in  the  War  with  Spain,"  "  The  American  Slave  Trade,"  etc.,  etc. 

IN      COLLABORATION      WITH 

A.   H.  Clark. 


WITH  FACSIMILES,  ILLUSTRATIONS  OF    HISTORIC  PLACES, 
MAPS,  AND  PORTRAITS. 


New  York. 

A.  S.  Clark,  Publisher. 

1903. 


Copyright,   1903,  by 
A.   S.  CI.ARK. 


All  rights  reserved. 


Press  of 

Braun-wrorth  &  Co. 

Bookbinders  and  Printers 

Brooklyn,  H.  Y, 


9 1  7,  7 


THIS  VOLUME  IS  RESPECTFULLY  DEDICATED 
TO  THE 

Hon.  Theodore  Roosevelt. 


AS  A  REPRESENTATIVE  AMERICAN 
AND    HISTORIAN. 


INTRODUCTION. 


This  work  is  to  give  an  account  of  the  things  done 
in  the  Mississippi  Valley  during  the  period  of  foreign 
control.  It  is  intended  to  be  a  narrative,  not  a  critical, 
history.  The  writer  has  tried  to  tell  about  the  achieve- 
ments of  the  men  who  traversed  the  Great  Lakes  in 
birch  bark  canoes,  or  walked  through  the  passes  of  the 
Alleghanies,  to  reach  the  Mississippi  Valley,  and,  when 
there,  turned  the  mighty  wilderness  into  the  Garden  of 
the  World. 

Naturally  the  story  begins  with  the  heroic  French- 
men who  first  learned  the  way  to  the  Great  Basin.  In 
the  days  when  the  people  of  Massachusetts  were  es- 
tablishing a  trading  post  on  the  Piscataqua  River,  New 
Hampshire,  and  the  Virginians  were  sending  an  ex- 
ploring expedition  to  learn  whether  a  river  flowed  into 
Delaware  Bay,  Jean  Nicolet  was  making  peace  with  the 
Indians  on  the  shores  of  Green  Bay,  Wisconsin.  While 
the  Dutch  of  New  Amsterdam  were  trading  with  the 
Indians  at  Albany,  Grosseilliers  and  Radisson,  paddled 
up  the  Ottawa  River,  (though  the  region  was  the  haunt 
of  the  Iroquois),  and  carried  trade  goods  to  the  Sioux 
on  the  banks  of  the  Mississippi.  When  the  British 
were  taking  New  York  from  the  Dutch,  La  Salle  was 
stretching  a  line  of  forts  from  the  St.  Lawrence  River 
toward  the  mouth  of  the  Mississippi. 

Yet  the  nation  from  which  the  intrepid  coureurs  de 


ii  Introduction. 

hois  and  explorers  sprang  produced  also  other  pioneers 
whose  manner  of  life  was  so  far  removed  from  that  of 
the  woods  rangers  as  to  furnish  the  most  striking  con- 
trast known  to  American  history.  For  those  were  the 
days  of  Louis  XIV.  and  XV.,  when  women  who  were 
not  queens  ruled  the  Court  of  France.  It  was  not  "the 
brief  season  of  the  Canadian  summer,  the  weary  winter, 
the  hazards  of  the  crop,"  that  brought  failure  to  the 
French  settlements.  The  settlements  in  Louisiana  were 
in  a  kindly  climate  and  they  stood  on  the  richest  soil  of 
the  earth.  The  French  failed  at  the  south  as  well  as 
the  north  because  of  the  fungi  spread  by  the  shadow 
of  the  French  Court.  The  beginning  of  the  French 
Revolution  was  seen  in  America  when  the  man  with 
the  axe  drove  the  lace-bedecked  vagabond  carrying  a 
sword  from  the  lands  west  of  the  Alleghanies. 

In  the  meantime,  both  the  French  and  the  British 
had  supplanted,  more  or  less,  another  race  of  people — 
a  race  of  red  men  known  as  Indians.  In  modern  times, 
while  the  people  of  the  United  States  have  difficult  race 
problems  still  in  hand,  it  seems  worth  while  remember- 
ing that  because  those  red  men  were  less  developed  than 
the  white,  they  were  the  wards  of  the  whites.  The 
Indians  were  children,  (they  were  often  called  so  by 
the  men  who  knew  them  best) ,  and  the  white  men  were 
rightfully  their  guardians.  It  was  a  responsibility  that 
wa'^s  ignored  and  rudely  thrust  aside,  but  with  such  in- 
finitely distressful  results  as  we  shall  see. 

The  white  men  found  the  Indian  passing  rapidly 
from  the  life  of  a  hunter  to  that  of  the  agriculturist; 
but  instead  of  aiding  in  the  transition,  the  whites,  by 
offering  to  buy  furs,  turned  the  red  agriculturists  back 


Introduction.  iii 

to  the  hunter  hfe.  They  did  worse;  they  created  a 
market  for  human  scalps.  For  one  hundred  and  fifty 
years  the  red  men  were,  by  every  means  incited  to  shed 
the  blood  of  animals  and  men ;  and  then  the  white  man 
looked  upon  them  with  horror  and  disgust  because 
they  were  ready  to  fight  for  their  hunting  grounds. 

But  while  the  white  race  as  a  whole  were  cultivat- 
ing the  red  thirst  for  blood,  a  few  white  men,  known  as 
Quakers  and  Moravians,  were  dealing  with  the  red  men 
on  an  entirely  different  basis.  The  Quakers  and  Mora- 
vians were  subjected  to  many  indignities  and  even  out- 
rages for  their  peculiarity  of  regard  for  the  less  de- 
veloped red  men.  Historians  have  not  failed  to  de- 
nounce them,  and  frontiersmen  have  ever  groped  for 
words  with  which  to  express  their  disgust  when  think- 
ing of  "Quaker  sentiment." 

But  the  story  of  Gnadenhutten,  written  in  blood 
that  will  not  "out,"  proves  be3^ond  doubt  or  question 
that  the  tepees  and  huts  of  every  red  village  in  the  land 
might  have  been  turned  into  ''Tents  of  Grace." 

It  is  a  frightful  fact  that  for  every  red  man  slain  by 
by  the  whites,  in  the  frontier  wars,  at  least  three  whites 
were  slain  by  the  red.  That  fact  is  sufficient  to  damn 
the  white  policy,  but  it  is  not  all ;  for  because  of  the 
policy  that  was  pursued  by  those  who  despised  "Qua- 
ker sentiment,"  we  are  even  now  paying  more  than  ten 
million  dollars  a  year  for  the  expenses  of  the  Indian 
Bureau.  Yet  the  fact  remains  that  the  cost  of  convert- 
ing the  Delaware  Indians  of  Gnadenhutten  from  the 
red  savages,  which  they  had  been,  to  the  stump-grub- 
bing farmers,  which  they  became,  was  less  than  the 
waste  of  any  one  of  hundreds  of  Indian  raids. 


iv  Introduction, 

While  the  people  of  the  United  States  have  the  ves- 
tige of  a  race  problem  yet  unsolved  the  story  of  Gnad- 
enhutten  is  the  most  instructive  of  all  that  are  known  to 
the  annals  of  America.  Let  those  who,  with  bobbing 
heads,  mumble  some  sort  of  a  creed  on  Sundays,  and 
live  the  devil  knows  how  the  rest  of  the  week,  consider 
it  with  care,  for  to  them  it  has  a  special  significance. 

But  this  is  by  no  means  to  withhold  sympathy  from 
the  frontier  Americans.  Their  migration  was  instinc- 
tive; it  was  due  to  the  innate  characteristics  of  a  domi- 
nant race.  It  was  inevitable,  and  in  every  way  desira- 
ble. No  one  has  a  right  to  complain  because  they  took 
the  hunting  grounds  of  the  red  man.  The  Indian 
should  have  been  deprived  of  his  hunting  grounds  to 
the  last  acre,  with  the  utmost  possible  speed,  and  sup- 
plied with  farms  and  play  grounds  instead.  It  was  the 
manner  of  taking  that  cursed  the  frontiersmen,  and 
they  are  to  be  pitied  with  an  infinite  pity.  The  effect 
of  the  evil  policy  on  the  frontiersmen  is  the  important 
matter.  They  were  the  advance  guard  of  the  hosts  of 
civilization  and  were  sent  forth  to  be  slaughtered  for  the 
salvation  and  benefit  of  those  who  came  after.  Of  250 
men  in  Robertson's  Settlement  at  Nashville,  229  died 
by  violence  inside  of  twelve  years. 

In  connection  with  the  slaughter  of  the  frontiers- 
men in  the  Mississippi  Valley  it  is  impossible  to  ignore 
the  fact  that  the  red  men  were,  during  the  War  of  the 
Revolution  and  for  twelve  years  after  it,  sicked  on  by 
British  officers.  That  is  a  story  to  rouse  the  indigna- 
tion of  every  patriot,  and,  at  first  thought,  one  might 
say  it  should  be  glossed  over  in  this  era  of  growing 
good  feeling  between  nations.     On  the  other  hand, 


Introduction.  v 

however,  one  should  not  forget  that  to  gloss  over  is  to 
he.  Moreover,  the  story  is  worth  telling  to  show  the 
tremendous  contrast  between  that  era  and  the  present — 
a  contrast  that  has  been  made  possible  by  the  develop- 
ment of  Christian  civilization,  and  the  construction  of 
an  American  fleet  of  unequalled  war  ships. 

And  that  is  to  say,  indirectly,  that  nations  have  al- 
ways been,  and  are,  bullies.  They  treat  the  powerful, 
and  no  others,  with  the  kindliest  consideration.  Near 
the  end  of  the  Eighteenth  Century  we  would  not  create 
a  navy,  but  we  built  a  ship  of  war,  ballasted  it  with  sil- 
ver dollars,  and  sent  it  to  a  ]\Iediterranean  pirate  to 
purchase  his  favor.  We  permitted  ourselves  to  be 
blackmailed  by  African  corsairs.  And  in  consequence 
of  our  craven  spirit,  the  British  held  a  firm  grasp  on  the 
territory  northwest  of  the  Ohio  River;  the  Spanish 
held  Natchez  and  our  southwest  territory ;  the  French 
with  their  privateers  and  naval  ships,  swept  our  com- 
merce from  the  West  Indies,  and  all  three  powers  bul- 
lied and  browbeat  our  Government  officials  at  almost 
every  interchange  of  communications.  The  American 
State  Papers  are  instructive  if  unpleasant  reading.  At 
the  beginning  of  the  Twentieth  Century  we  have  in 
hand  battleships  with  broadside  guns  of  seven-inch  and 
eight-inch  caliber — battleships  that  are  far  and  away  su- 
perior to  anything  conceived  elsewhere — and  we  have 
unruffled  peace,  with  unopposed  progress  in  the  devel- 
opment of  our  civilization. 

If  we  were  led  by  foolish  policies  in  other  days,  it 
was  because  we  were  foolish,  and  not  because  of  any 
lack  of  examples  in  right  policies.  The  story  of  the 
work  of  George  Rogers  Clark  in  the  Illinois  country  is 


vi  Introduction. 

one  of  the  most  instructive  in  the  war  annals  of  the 
world.  There  were  two  methods  of  repelling  the  raids 
of  the  enemy  in  those  days.  The  common  way  was  to 
build  a  log  fort,  and  when  protected  by  its  walls,  to 
shoot  every  enemy  that  came  in  sight.  It  was  a  method 
that  became  national.  We  built  forts  at  the  Atlantic 
ports,  and,  as  late  as  1890,  we  built  "coast  defence" 
ships.  The  forts  and  coast  defence  ships  were  not 
wholly  useless.  Like  the  quills  of  the  porcupine,  they 
could  prove  very  useful,  under  some  circumstances. 
The  porcupine  method  of  repelling  an  enemy  was  held 
in  high  regard  for  many  years  by  our  people. 

But  George  Rogers  Clark  (an  American  born  a 
hundred  years  ahead  of  his  time,  he),  would  have  none 
of  the  porcupine  policy.  He  saw  that  the  way  to  pro- 
tect the  frontier  was  to  carry  the  war  to  the  strongholds 
of  the  enemy.  He  took  Kaskaskia  and  Vincennes.  He 
gave  the  United  States  the  Northwest  Territory.  He 
was  urgent  for  men  and  means  with  which  to  take  De- 
troit. Had  his  requests  been  heeded  the  raids  on  Ken- 
tucky would  have  ceased,  and  there  would  have  been  no 
trouble  over  the  Northwest  posts  in  after  years. 

But  because  Clark's  work  was  ignored,  the  broad 
territory  which  he  had  won  had  to  be  rewon,  and 
"Mad"  Anthony  Wayne  was  the  man  for  the  day.  Of 
all  the  brigadiers  of  the  Revolution,  he  is  best  worth 
memory,  but  it  is  not  on  his  "mad"  charges  in  the  face 
of  the  enemy  that  his  fame  is  grounded.  Those,  indeed, 
were  splendid,  but  that  parade  of  his  men  with  their 
hair  neatly  powdered  before  the  attack  on  Stony  Point 
is  significant ;  so  is  the  further  fact  that  every  dog  with- 
in three  miles  of  the  Point  was  killed  before  the  attack. 


Introduction.  vii 

But  of  all  that  this  man  did,  nothing  will  be  remem- 
bered longer  than  the  fact  that  when  he  came  to  recon- 
quer the  region  Clark  had  won,  he  trained  more  than  a 
thousand  men  of  his  legion  until  they  could  load  and  fire 
their  rifles  with  precision  while  charging  at  full  speed 
on  the  enemy.  Anthony  Wayne  zvas  the  best  drill  mas- 
ter the  American  army  ever  had. 

As  said, this  work  is  to  give  an  account  of  the  things 
done  in  the  Great  Valley,  but  necessarily  a  record  had 
to  be  made  of  those  proceedings  elsewhere  by  which  the 
destinies  of  the  Valley  were  influenced.  The  Spanish, 
who  were  really  the  first  to  see  the  Valley,  and  who  at 
the  end  of  the  Seven  Years  War,  obtained  New  Or- 
leans and  the  region  between  the  Rockies  and  the  Mis- 
sissippi, took  possession  of  Natchez  and  a  large  section 
of  American  soil  during  the  War  of  the  Revolution. 
They  were  determined,  after  the  war  was  ended,  not 
only  to  hold  it,  but  to  grasp  all  the  unsettled  part  of  the 
Great  Valley,  regardless  of  American  claims.  In  this 
matter  the  French  Government  earnestly  supported 
them,  and  the  diplomatic  complications  that  grew  out 
of  this  condition  of  affairs,  are  interesting.  In  their 
efforts  to  "cinch"  the  territory  the  Spanish  amuse  or 
exasperate  the  student  of  history  according  to  his  men- 
tal attitude  toward  their  peculiar  characteristics.  But 
the  settlers  of  the  Great  Valley,  in  the  days  of  the  Span- 
ish complications,  never  found  the  situation  amusing, 
and  the  fact  that  the  Spanish  were  not  swept  out  of  the 
Mississippi  Valley  by  a  flood  tide  of  indignant  back- 
woodsmen must  ever  remain  a  matter  of  wonder  and 
pride  to  the  American  patriot. 

By  unwavering  persistence  the  Americans  foiled 


viii  Introduction. 

the  Spanish  shufflings,  evasions  and  obstinacy,  so  that  a 
time  came  when  Spain  traded  the  great  Louisiana  ter- 
ritory back  to  France.  The  day  of  its  salvation  was 
then  close  at  hand.  Napoleon  ruled  France,  and  for  a 
brief  period,  he  thought  to  regain  for  her  all  the  splen- 
did region  on  which  La  Salle  had  filed  the  French 
claim.  He  bought  the  Louisiana  territory;  he  thought 
to  take  the  land  east  of  the  Mississippi  with  an  army 
of  10,000  men.  But  when  the  eagle  alighted  before 
him  with  one  naked  claw  representing  30,000  "Prime 
Riflemen,"  and  the  other  offering  him  a  purse,  his  vision 
was  cleared.  The  transfer  of  Louisiana  to  the  United 
States  was  made  through  the  hatred  of  the  British  and 
the  fear  of  America.  He  prophesied  that  the  valley  of 
the  Mississippi  would  make  the  United  States  a  "mar- 
itime rival"  of  the  British,  and  a  century  after  his 
prophesy  was  made,  the  greatest  transatlantic  lines  of 
steamships  are  controlled  by  capitalists  whose  wealth 
has  been  drawn  from  traffic  originating  in  the  Great 
Basin.  But,  curiously  enough,  the  development  which 
Napoleon  hoped  for  has  only  served  to  draw  the  En- 
glish-speaking rivals  closer  together,  instead  of  driving 
them  apart. 

It  is  a  long  story,  this  of  the  Mississippi  Valley,  but 
from  the  year  when  Grosseiliers  and  Radisson  first 
traded  for  beaver  skin  on  the  bank  of  the  upper  river, 
until  the  day  when  the  Gridiron  Flag,  hoisted  at  New 
Orleans,  covered  the  whole  Great  Basin,  it  is  a  story 
that  can  be  summed  up  in  one  word — JVork.  From  the 
first  to  the  last,  the  men  whose  names  are  memorable 
in  the  history  of  the  Valley,  whether  they  were  traders 
like  the  coicreurs  de  hois  looking  for  profit ;  or  empire 


Introduction. 


IX 


founders,  like  La  Salle,  looking  for  power;  or  migra- 
tors, like  the  hosts  that  followed  the  Ohio  and  the  Wil- 
derness Road,  looking  for  home  sites ;  or  statesmen  like 
Monroe  and  Livingston,  looking  for  the  good  of  the 
Nation,  all  have  been  men  who  could  and  who  would 
work.  Work  is  the  one  word  emblazoned  on  the  es- 
cutcheon of  the  people  of  the  Great  Basin. 

To  show  a  part  of  what  work  has  accomplished  in 
the  affairs  of  a  mighty  region  is  the  chief  object  of  this 
book,  and  it  is  therefore  offered  to  the  growing  host 
of  good  Americans  who  see  clearly  that 

"The  All  of  Things  is  an  infinite  conjugation  of  the 
verb  To  Do." 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER  PAGE 

I.    On  the  Brim  of  the  Great  Basin i 

II.    First  Exploration  of  the  Mississippi  River 13 

III.  La  Salle  and  Louisiana 25 

IV.  From  La  Salle  to  New  Orleans Si 

V.    Indians  of  the  Mississippi  Valley 75 

VI.    Work  of  the  French  in  the  Valley 103 

VII.  The  French  Expelled  from  the  Valley,  Part  i. .  119 

VIII.  The  French  Expelled  from  the  Valley,  Part  2. .  133 

IX.    The  Spanish  IN  THE  Great  Valley I57 

X.     PoNTiAc's  War  as  Seen  in  the  Valley 171 

XI.    Crossing  the  Range 183 

XII.    Lord  Dunmore's  War 209 

XIII.  The  Home  Makers  IN  Kentucky 223 

XIV.  On  the  Frontier  during  the  Revolution 247 

XV.     The  Work  of  Geo.  Rogers  Clark 267 

XVI.    As  THE  War  Dragged  On 287 

XVII.    Gnadenhutten   293 

XVIII.    Fighting  that  Followed  Gnadenhutten 303 

XIX.    The  Frontiersmen  at  King's  Mountain 313 

XX.    Frontier  Home  and  Civil  Life  in  War  Time 319 

XXI.    Fighting  to  Possess  Land  Already  Won 331 

XXII.    In  the  Southwest  after  the  Revolution 355 

XXIII.  The  Nation  Gets  Its  Own 369 

XXIV.  The  Garden  of  America  for  Americans  Only 379 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS. 


Pen  and   ink  sketches,  head  and  tail  pieces,  chapter  headings, 
both  original  and  reproductions,  by  Miss  E.  S.  Clark. 

George  Rogers   Clark Frontispiece 

From  a  portrait  by  Jarvis. 

PAGE 

Indian  Braves  in  Costume ix 

"Ftotd.  Catlin's  Indians. 

John   Jay    (facing) i 

From  a  portrait  by  Wilkinson,  London,  1783. 

Heading  of  Chap.  I.,  Indian  Throwing  Tomahawk  ...  i 

View  of  the  Three  Great  Divisions  of  the  United  States  8 

River   St.    Lawrence       lo 

River  St.  Lawrence,  showing  "La  Chine"  Rapids,  early 
French  settlements,  etc. 

Jean  Baptiste  Talon      12 

From  portrait  by  Hamel. 

Heading  of  Chap.  II.,  Winter  Costume  of  Indian       .    .  13 

Eastern  Portion  of  Joliet's  Map,  1674 iS 

Central  Portion  of  Joliet's  Map,  1674 21 

Marquette's  Map,  1681 23 

Block  House  at  Lexington,  Ky 24 

Robert  Cavalier,  Sieur  de  La  Salle  (facing) 25 

Heading  of  Chap.  Ill 25 

The  building  of  the  "Griffin." 


xiv  List  of  Illustrations. 

PAGE 

Sketch  of  Niagara  River,  Showing  Ancient  Portages    .     30 

From  "Bouchette  British  Dominions  in  North  Ameri- 
ca." 

Fort  Niagara 32 

From  the  "Portfolio,"   1813. 

Map  of  Franquelin    1684 44 

Indian  Chief's  Headdress 50 

From  Catlin's  Indians. 

Jean  Baptiste  le  Moyne,  Sieur  de  Bienville  (facing)    .    .     51 
From  an  original  portrait. 

Heading  of  Chap.   IV 51 

Indian  on  horseback  from  Catlin. 

De  Lisle,  Map  of  the  Course  of  the  Mississippi  1703    .    .      52 

Jeanne-Antoinette  Poisson,  Marquise  De  Pompadour.    .      56 
From  a  portrait  by  Harding. 

Moll's  Map,  1710 58 

Joutel's   Map,    1713 65 

Louis  XV.,  King  of  France 70 

From  a  contemporary  print. 

New  Orleans,  1728 73 

Louis  XIV.,  King  of  France  (facing) 75 

From  a  contemporary  portrait. 

Heading  of  Chap.  V 75 

Death  of  Vincennes.   from  Bancroft's  United  States. 

Location  of  Indian  Tribes  East  of  the  Mississippi  ...      82 

From  Bancroft's  United  States. 
Indian  Mounds  in  Ohio 84 

From  Atwater's  Antiquities  of  Ohio. 


List  of  Illustrations.  xv 

PAGE 

Ancient  Indian  Fortifications  at  Newark,  Ohio    ...      90 
From  The  Family  Magazine,   1843. 

A  Typical  Indian  Village 96 

From  a  painting  by  Bierstadt. 

John  Law,  Projector  of  the  Mississippi  Scheme  (facing)  103 

From  a  Contemporary  print. 

Heading  of  Chapter  VI 103 

A  frontier  greeting. 

A  Portion  of  Labat's  Map,  1722 105 

Tail-Piece,  an  Indian  Visit 118 

King  Philip  (facing) 119 

From  an  Original  by  Paul  Revere. 

Heading  of   Chap.    VII iig 

Example  of  a  Log  House  of  the  Better  Class. 

Map  of  Celoron's  Expedition 128 

Fac-Simile  of  one  of  Celoron's  Lead  Plates 129 

George    Washington    at    Twenty-five    Years    of    Age 
(facing) 133 

From  Irving' s  Washington,  1st  edition. 
Heading  of  Chap.  VIIL,  Fort  Du  Quesne  1755    .    ...    133 
Frederick  the  Great      142 

From  the  Encylopedia  Londinensis. 
The  Braddock  Campaign 144 

From  Bancroft's  United   States. 

Fall  of  Braddock 146 

From  "Battles  of  the  United  States." 

Scene  of  Braddock's  Defeat 148 

From  Irving's  Life  of  Washington,  1st  edition. 


xvi  List  of  Illustrations. 

PAGE 

Tail-Piece,    Braddock's    Defeat 156 

From  a  contemporary  copper  plate,  the  legend  of  which 
describes  Braddock  as  being  in  the  cart,  and  Washington 
the  figure  to  the  right. 

Hernando  De  Soto  (facing) 157 

From  an  early  portrait. 

Heading  of  Chap.  IX.,  Fort  Pitt,  1759 157 

Don  Antonio  De  Ulloa,  Gov.  of  La.,  1764 163 

From  an  engraving  by  Scriven. 

Sir  William   Johnson    (facing) 171 

'r'            From  the  London  Magazine,  1756. 
Heading  of  Chap.  X 171 

Modern  remains  of  Fort  Pitt. 

Major  Robert  Rogers,  Indian  Scout,  etc 173 

From  a  London  portrait  of  1770. 

Daniel  Boone  (facing) 183 

From  an  original  portrait  by  Harding. 

Heading  of  Chap.  XI 183 

Signatures  to  "Walpole's  Grant,"  afterwards  included 
in  the  "Ohio  Company." 

Map  of  Ohio  Land  Grants IQO 

From  the  map  of  Lewis,  1796. 

George  III.,  King  of  England I93 

From  a  portrait  painted  in  1760. 

An  Indian  Surprise 204 

From  a  painting  by  F.   O.   C.  Darley. 
Tail-Piece,  Ancient  Manner  of  Loading  a  Rifle    ....    208 
Simon  Kenton,  the  Companion  of  Boone  (facing)     .    .    .    209 

From  a  portrait  by  L.  W.  Morgan. 


List  of  Illustratiotis.  xvii 

PAGE 

Heading  of  Chap.  XII.,  Cornstalk's  Tomahawk    ....    209 
Which  is  still  preserved. 

Gen.  Wm.  Henry  Harrison's  Residence 220 

From  an  early  lithograph. 

IMaj.  Gen.  William  Henry  Harrison 220 

From  an  original  portrait  by  J.  R.  Lambdin. 

Benjamin  Franklin   (facing) 223 

From  a  portrait  in  the  Portfolio,  1818. 

Heading  of  Chap.  XIII.,  A  Call  to  Arms 223 

A  Portion  of  Filson's  Map  1785,  Showing  Vicinity  of 
Harrodsburg 229 

Another  Portion  of  Filson's  Map,  Including  Lexington    231 

More  of  Filson's  IMap,  with  Louisville  as  the  Centre    .    233 

Andrew  Jackson 235 

From  a  portrait  by  Jarvis. 
Mrs.  Andrew  Jackson 236 

Taken  from  a  portrait,  made  shortly  after  ball  given  in 
honor  of  her   husband. 

A  Hunter  Armed  with  a  "Deckhard"  Rifle 238 

From  an  engraving  by  Sartain. 

Tail-Piece   Peace  and  War 246 

OuTACiTE,  A  Cherokee  Chief  (facing) 247 

From  Church's  Indian  Wars. 

Heading  of  Chap.  XIV.,  Block  House  at  Fort  Stanwix    247 

The  Massacre  of  the  Family  of  Johanas  Dietz  (1775?)  .    252 
From  a  contemporary  broadside. 

George  Rogers  Clark  (facing) 267 

From  a  portrait   from  life  in  possession  of  Vincennes 
University,  Ind. 


xviii  List  of  Illustrations. 

PAGE 

Heading  of  Chap.  XV.,  Fort  Wayne  in  1794 267 

From  a  contemporary  sketch. 

Col.  George  Croghan       274 

From  the  Portfolio. 

Indian   Scalp  Dance       282 

From   The   Family   Magazine,   1844. 

Col.  Francis  Vigo 284 

From  the  Magazine   of  Western   History. 

George  Washington  at  Fifty-six  Years  of  Age  (facing)     287 
From  a  portrait  by  Geoffroy,   Paris. 

Heading  of  Chap.  XVI.,  Frontier  Block  House     ....    287 

William  Penn 292 

Heading  of  Chap.  XVIL,  From  West's  Painting  of  the 
Penn  Treaty 293 

Indian  Monument  at  Gnadenhutten 300 

Col.  Aaron  Ogden  (facing) t 303 

From  a  portrait  by  A.  B.  Durand. 

Heading  of  Chap.  XVIII.,  Fort  Lexington  in  1782    ...    303 

Now  Lexington,   Ky. 

York  on  Lake  Ontario  in  1812 308 

From  a  plate  in  The  Portfolio. 

Marquis  Cornwallis  (facing) 3^2 

From  a  portrait  by  Copley. 

Heading  of  Chap.  XIX.,  Stone  Marking  Grave  of  Col. 
Ferguson  at  Kings  Mountain 3^3 

Plan  of  the  Action  at  Kings  Mountain 316 

From  Ramsey's  Annals  of  Tennessee.  ^ 

Burial  Place  of  Col.  Ferguson 3i8 

From  American   Historical  Record. 


List  of  Illustrations.  xix 

PAGE 

Gen.  Isaac  Shelby  (facing)    .-...- 319 

From  an  engraving  by  Durand. 
Heading  of  Chap.  XX.,  Pioneers  en  Route 319 

Brig.    Gen.    Anthony   Wayne    (facing) 331 

Fram  a  pencil  sketch  by  Col.  John  Trumbull. 
Heading  of  Chapter  XXL,  Wayne  Drilling  His  Men    .    331 

A  Portion  of  the  Map  of  Lewis,  Showing  Fort  Wayne 
and  Vicinity  1706 334 

Marie  Antoinette,  Queen  of  France 337 

FVom  a  contemporary  print. 
Ma  J.  Gen.  Arthur  St.  Clair 338 

From  a  drawing  by  Col.  John  Trumbull. 

Map  of  Ohio,  made  by  Gen.  Rufus  Putnam  in  1804    ,    .    .    340 

Another   Portion  of  the  Map  of  Lewis   1796,   Showing 
Position   of  Various   Forts 348 

Battle  of   Fallen   Tjmber 350 

From  "Battles  of  America." 

Plan  of  the  Battle  of  Fallen  Timber 353 

James    Madison    (facing) 355 

From  original   portrait  by  Stuart. 

Heading  of  Chap.  XXH.,  Fort  Washington  (Now  Cincin- 
nati)   in   1790       355 

Tail-Piece,   Niagara   Falls    from  the  Earliest   Known 
Print       ,    368 

William  Charles  Cole  Claiborne  (facing) 369 

Heading  of  Chap.  XXHL,  Campus  Martius,  at  the  Pres- 
ent Site  of  Marietta,  Ohio 369 

Edmund  Charles   Genet 370 

From  a  painting  by  Fouquet. 


XX  List  of  Illustrations. 

PAGE 

Thomas    Pinckney 373 

From  The  Portfolio. 
A  School  Boy's  Map  of  the  United  States  in  1796    .    .    .    374 

From  Morse's  Elements  of  Greography. 

James   Edward  Oglethorpe 376 

From  a  contemporary  engraving. 
Tail-Piece,  A  Possible  Picture  of  Rev.  Samuel  Doak    .    378 

Robert  R.  Livingston  (facing) 379 

From  Irving's  Life  of  Washington. 

Heading  of  Chap.  XXIV.,  The  Flag  Covers  the  Entire 
Valley       379 

Thomas    Jefferson 385 

From  a  plate  contemporary  with  Miss,   affairs, 

James    Monroe 390 

From  a  portrait  by  Vanderlyn. 

Thomas  B.  Robertson ^ 39^ 

From  a  portrait  by  St.  Memim. 
Tail-Piece,  "A  New  Home,  Who'll  Follow?"     ....    401 


^eais  nf  x^na'ofn,  tJbjiugJj  bxrmt^ht  in  nnthnt  itags  f 
Cells  of  a  fcto  stiixtt  iwartSf  that  fttugltt  axtii  iticii 
HJjcrc  i»«tg  placcii  tJtcm^  at  titcir  raimtrg's  siiie  ? 
Clw  matt  titat  is  ttot  mttttcit  bg  toJbat  Jbc  rcaiis, 
(Lljat  takes  wat  fire  at  titeir  Ijeroit  itecits, 
IH^tthxxirtltg  of  the  Blessings  xxf  tije  brakte, 
Js  tase  in  kinii,  anit  bixxn  to  he  a  slaiie/^ 


JwlIN    JAY. 

Daniel  Webster  said  of  him:  "When  the  spotless  ermine  of  the  judicial 

robe  fell  on  John  Jay,  it  touched  nothing:  less  spotless  than  itself." 

This  portrait  was  engraved  by  Wilkinson,  London,  17S3. 


ON  THE  BRIM  OF  THE  GREAT  BASIN. 

The  First  Coureur-de-Bois  and  His  Fate-^Adventures  of 
Jean  Nicokt — An  Ambassador  with  two  Pistols — 
The  Courageous  Traders  Who  First  Reached  the 
Mississippi — A  Trading  Station  that  Was  a  "First 
Chance"  for  Warriors  as  Well  as  Peaceful  Indians — 
The  Notable  Manner  in  Which  the  La  Chine  Rapids 
Were  Named. 

The  connected  historical  story  of  the  Mississippi 
valley  begins  wnth  the  training  of  the  first  coiirenr  de 
hois,  Etienne  Brule,  for  it  was  through  the  enterprising, 
adventure-loving  spirit  of  this  notable  class  of  French- 
men, the  coiireiirs  de  hois,  that  civilized  people  were 
first  led  to  make  permanent  settlements  within  the 
Great  Basin.  The  Spanish  under  De  Soto  had  discov- 
ered, it  is  true,  the  Mississippi  in  1541  (as  shall  be  told 


A  History  of  the 

further  on),  but  nothing  came  of  that  expedition  save 
only  as  the  story  of  it  served  to  inspire  one  of  the  great- 
est of  French  explorers,  more  than  a  hundred  years 
later,  the  Sieur  de  la  Salle. 

It  was  Samuel  de  Champlain  who  made  a  coureur 
de  hois  of  Etienne  Brule — who,  in  fact,  originated  the 
coureur  de  hois  system  of  exploration.  Champlain 
founded  the  city  of  Quebec  in  1608,  making  of  it,  at 
first,  a  fur-trading  station,  but  hoping  that  in  the  end  it 
would  become  the  capital  of  a  new  great  French  empire. 
In  the  year  1609  he  discovered  Lake  Champlain,  while 
on  the  war  path  with  an  Algonquin  party,  and  there, 
in  1 610,  not  far  from  the  St.  Lawrence,  he  captured  an 
Iroquois  brush  fort,  and  killed  all  but  one  of  the  garri- 
son that  numbered  100. 

In  celebrating  this  victory,  of  1610,  Iroquet,  the  In- 
dian chief,  gave  a  young  savage  named  Savignon  to  the 
French  as  a  pledge  of  future  friendship  and  Champlain 
in  return  gave  Etienne  Brule  to  Iroquet. 

So  far  as  the  records  show  Etienne  Brule  was  the 
first  Frenchman  to  join  the  Sauvagcs — the  wild  men  of 
America,  and  fully  to  adopt  their  manner  of  life.  He 
became  one  of,  as  well  as  one  with,  them,  but  he  was 
nevertheless  a  Frenchman  still,  and  kept  his  eyes  open 
for  his  own  advantage,  and  for  that  of  his  country.  He 
became  a  woods  ranger  and  trader  on  his  own  account, 
and  an  interpreter  and  ambassador  among  the  Indians 
for  the  benefit  of  his  countrymen. 

Save  only  as  he  showed  to  Champlain  the  advan- 
tage of  having  men  trained  in  that  fashion  among  the 
Indians,  Etienne  Brule  did  but  little  to  lead  his 
countrymen  toward  the  Mississippi  Valley.     There  is 

2 


Mississippi  Valley. 

no  record  of  his  having  so  much  as  heard  of  the  great 
stream,  though  he  did,  very  hkely,  wander  as  far  west 
as  Lake  Superior,  for  he  said  he  was  on  the  shores  of  a 
great  lake  where  native  copper  was  found  in  nuggets, 
and  he  brought  a  nugget  to  Quebec  to  prove  the  story. 
He  might  have  accomphshed  more,  for  his  enterprise 
was  praiseworthy,  but  he  got  in  trouble  with  some  Hu- 
rons,  east  of  Lake  Huron,  presumably  over  some  red 
sweetheart,  and  they  killed  and  ate  him.  And  that  was 
the  fate  of  not  a  few  woods  rangers  who  came  after 
him. 

In  the  meantime  another  French  youth,  Jean  Nico- 
let,  had  come  to  join  Champlain.  He  arrived  in  1618. 
Because  Brule  had  been  serviceable  while  living  among 
the  Lidians,  Champlain  determined  to  give  Nicolet  a 
similar  training,  and  for  nine  years  he  lived  with  the 
Indians  to  the  eastward  of  Lake  Huron,  "undergoing 
such  fatigues  as  none  but  eye  witnesses  can  conceive; 
he  often  passed  seven  or  eight  days  without  food,  and 
once,  full  seven  weeks  with  no  other  nourishment  than 
a  little  bark  from  the  trees,"  as  an  old  Jesuit  "Relation" 
says.  He  had  there  "his  own  separate  cabin  and  house- 
hold, and  fishing  and  trading  for  himself." 

In  1633  Nicolet  returned  to  the  St.  Lawrence  settle- 
ments, and  in  1634  was  sent  to  explore  the  region  be- 
yond Lake  Michigan.  The  Indians  had  been  telling  of 
the  wonders  of  that  country  ever  since  Champlain  ar- 
rived among  them,  and  Nicolet  had  returned  with  a 
fixed  belief  that  either  the  Chinese  or  the  Japanese  came 
to  that  country  every  year  to  trade.  At  any  rate  it  was 
a  people,  the  Indians  said,  that  used  huge  wooden  ca- 
noes instead  of  little  portable  canoes  of  birch  bark,  and 

3 


A  History  of  the 

the  French  thought  the  huge  wooden  canoes  must  be 
ships. 

Nicolet  started  on  July  7,  1634,  with  a  party  of  In- 
dians and  priests  who  were  bound  for  Georgian  Bay 
(p.  99,  vol.  viii.,  Thwaite's  edition  of  Jesuit  "Rela- 
tions"), and  the  party  was  thirty  days  on  the  road. 

With  seven  Huron  Indians  for  company,  Nicolet 
M'ent  first  to  the  Sault  Sainte  Marie,  a  noted  gathering 
place  for  western  tribes,  but  finding  no  Asiatics  there, 
nor  any  one  that  looked  like  them,  he  paddled  around 
to  Green  Bay,  on  the  northwest  corner  of  Lake  Michi- 
gan, where  a  still  more  populous  region  was  found,  be- 
cause of  the  wild  rice  growing  in  the  lakes,  and  in  the 
still  waters  beyond. 

Here  a  real  test  of  Nicolet's  ability  as  an  ambassa- 
dor was  to  be  made.  For  the  Indians  were  utter  stran- 
gers to  him  and  his  Hurons,  and  their  language  was 
wholly  different. 

First  of  all  he  landed  and  "fastened  two  sticks  in 
the  earth,  and  hung  gifts  thereon,  so  as  to  relieve  these 
tribes  from  the  notion  of  mistaking  them  for  enemies." 
When  the  presents  had  been  discovered  and  carried 
away,  a  lone  Huron  went  in  search  of  the  tribe  to  say 
by  the  sign  language  that  a  man  of  the  people  who  man- 
ufactured the  presents  wished  to  come  and  deliver 
many  more  things  of  the  same  kind.  This  message  was 
kindly  received  and  "they  dispatched  several  young 
men  to  meet  the  manitouriniou — that  is  to  say,  'the 
wonderful  man.'  " 

"The  news  of  Nicolet's  coming  quickly  spread  to 
the  villages  round  about,  and  there  assembled  four  or 
five  thousand  men."     Nicolet  dressed  himself  in  "a 

4 


Mississippi  Valley. 

grand  robe  of  China  damask,  all  strewn  with  flowers 
and  birds  of  many  colors."  Then  with  a  pistol  in  each 
hand,  he  approached  the  great  throng,  fired  off  blank 
cartridges  in  his  weapons,  and  finally  gravely  seated 
himself  in  the  place  left  vacant  for  him. 

The  "squaws  and  children  fled  screaming,"  but  the 
warriors  were  so  highly  pleased  that  they  gave  him  a 
feast  in  which,  as  he  was  careful  to  report,  no  less  than 
120  beavers  were  eaten. 

From  Green  Bay  Nicolet  went  up  Fox  River  to  the 
Mascoutin  Indians,  whose  language  he  understood.  Of 
them  he  learned  that  no  Asiatics  came  to  the  region. 
The  "strange  people"  of  whom  he  had  heard  were 
Naduesiu  (Sioux)  Indians,  and  their  large  wooden  ca- 
noes were  dugouts — big  logs  cut  to  canoe  shape.  They 
lived  on  a  great  river,  not  a  great  sea,  and  the  Indians 
said  Nicolet  could  reach  this  great  river  by  a  journey  of 
three  days  from  where  he  was  then  encamped.  It  is  not 
unreasonable  to  suppose  that  Nicolet  went  on  to  visit 
this  Sioux  tribe,  for  in  the  Jesuit  "Relation"  for  1640, 
the  writei;  gives  a  list  of  the  Indian  nations  around  the 
upper  lakes,  which  includes  the  Sioux,  and  says  of  the 
list: 

"Sieur  Nicolet  has  given  me  the  names  of  these  na- 
tions, zvliich  he  himself  has  visited,  for  the  most  part  in 
their  own  country." 

The  next  to  explore  the  region  south  and  west  of 
Lake  Superior  were  ]\Ienard  Chouart  des  Grosseilliers 
and  Pierre  Esprit  Radisson.  Grosseilliers,  as  a  servant 
of  the  Jesuit  missionaries,  was  in  1645,  employed 
among  the  Hurons  near  Georgian  Bay,  Lake  Huron. 
He  returned  to  the  St.  Lawrence  settlements  in  1646, 

5 


A  History  of  the 

and  remained  there  until  1654,  when  the  call  of  the 
wilds — the  memory  of  unrestrained  freedom  and  the 
beckoning  smiles  of  the  Indian  maidens — could  be  no 
longer  resisted.  In  company  with  Sieur  Radisson,  a 
close  personal  friend  (he  had  married  Radisson's  sis- 
ter), Grosseilliers  started  for  the  region  where  Nicolet 
had  seen  120  beavers  served  at  an  impromptu  feast. 

This  journey  was  one  of  the  most  daring  known  to 
the  history  of  exploration  in  any  country.  For  the 
Iroquois,,  since  the  days  of  their  defeats  by  Champlain, 
had  procured  (of  the  Dutch),  and  learned  to  use  fire 
arms.  With  these  new  weapons  they  had  crossed  the 
lakes  and  literally  swept  the  Huron  and  Algonquin  vil- 
lages from  the  face  of  the  earth.  Even  the  Esquimo  on 
the  shores  of  Hudson's  Bay  had  felt  the  power  of  the 
Iroquois  warriors,  while  the  French  themselves  had 
been  slaughtered  beneath  the  walls  built  to  guard  Mon- 
treal, Three  Rivers  and  Quebec.  The  whole  region 
between  the  St.  Lawrence  and  the  Laurentian  Moun- 
tains, the  Saguenay  River  and  Lake  Huron,  was,  in 
1654,  left  to  the  undisturbed  possession  of  the  furry 
and  feathered  animals,  save  only  as  Iroquois  bands  con- 
tinually prowled  to  and  fro  along  the  streams. 

So  complete  had  been  the  disaster  wrought  by  the 
Iroquois — so  terrified  were  the  Indians  of  all  other 
tribes — that  during  the  year  1653  not  a  single  skin  was 
brought  to  Montreal,  and  "in  the  Quebec  warehouse 
there  is  nothing  but  poverty." 

Nevertheless  on  August  6,  1654,  Grosseilliers  and 
Radisson  paddled  away  from  Montreal  and  disappeared 
up  the  Ottawa.  The  daring  of  the  Yankee  pioneers 
who,  like  Boone  and  Robertson,  plunged  alone  into  the 

6 


A  History  of  the 

wilds  has  been  praised  in  the  highest  terms,  and  with 
good  reason.  But  the  dangers  of  one  man  travelHng 
alone  through  the  forest  were  far  less  than  those  of 
these  two  men  paddling  with  trade  goods  up  an  open 
waterway  that  was  the  regular  highway  of  the  enemy. 

On  leaving  Montreal,  Grosseillier  and  Radisson 
promised  to  return  in  a  year.  They  failed  to  do  so  and, 
naturally,  they  were  mourned  as  dead.  But  at  the  end 
of  August,  1656,  they  returned  accompanied  by  fifty 
canoes  laden  with  furs.  "Their  arrival,"  says  the  Jesuit 
Relation,  "caused  the  country  universal  joy,"  and  they 
"landed  amid  the  stunning  noise  of  cannon." 

In  1659  these  two  woods  rangers  went  again  to  the 
wilds  of  Lake  Superior  and  they  came  back  safe  on 
August  21,  1660.  They  had  "wintered  with  the  Nation 
of  the  Ox"  (i.  e.,  the  Sioux),  and  had  visited  a  remnant 
of  the  Hurons  whom  they  found  living  on  "a  beautiful 
river,  large,  wide,  deep,  and  worthy  of  comparison 
with  our  great  river  St.  Lawrence."  (vol.  xlv.,  pp. 
163,  235 ;  Thwaite's  edition,  Jesuit  "Relations"). 

Radisson,  in  an  account  which  was  printed  after- 
wards, says:  "We  zuent  to  the  great  river  *  *  * 
which  we  believe  runs  towards  Mexico."  The  "Rela- 
tions" just  quoted  adds  that  "our  Frenchmen  visited 
the  forty  villages  of  zvhich  this  (Sioux)  nation  is  com- 
posed." 

Any  unprejudiced  reading  of  these  "Relations,"  and 
of  Radisson's  account,  shows  conclusively  that  these 
two  intrepid  woods  rangers  were  on  the  Mississippi 
river. 

From  the  Jesuit  "Relation"  of  1656-7  it  appears 
that  a  Jesuit  priest  may  have  passed  over  the  brim  of 

7 


Mississippi  Valley. 

the  Mississippi  Valley  still  earlier.  This  "Relation"  re- 
cords "some  peculiarities  of  the  Iroquois  country"  as 
observed  by  Jesuit  missionaries  sent  to  the  Onondaga 
region  under  the  lead  of  Father  Francois  le  Mercier. 
One  of  them  saw  a  spring  from  which  flowed  a  sub- 
stance that  "ignites  like  brandy,  and  boils  up  in  bubbles 
of  flame  when  fire  is  applied  to  it.  *  *  *  Our  sav- 
ages use  it  to  grease  their  heads  and  bodies."  It  is 
believed  that  this  was  a  petroleum  spring  in  Alleghany 
county,  New  York,  the  water  of  which  flows  to  the 
Alleghany  river. 

In  1665  Father  Allouez  established  a  mission  at  a 
place  called  La  Pointe,  on  Lake  Superior,  near  where 
Ashland,  Wisconsin,  now  stands,  and  while  there  he 
wrote  of  the  great  ri\-er  under  the  name  it  now  bears — 
"Messipi" — that  being  the  Indian  word  meaning  great 
water. 

And  then  came  La  Salle.  Rene  Robert  Cavalier, 
Sieur  de  la  Salle  was  born  in  Rouen,  France,  on  No- 
vember 21,  1643.  He  attended  a  Jesuit  school  there 
until  15,  and  then  went  to  Paris  and  prepared  to  join 
the  Order;  but  after  taking  preliminary  vows  left  them, 
and,  according  to  the  best  authorities,  came  to  Montreal 
in  the  spring  of  1666. 

IMontreal  was  then  the  frontier  settlement  of  New 
France,  and  the  prowling  Iroquois  often  murdered 
Frenchmen  within  the  shadows  of  its  forts.  Neverthe- 
less La  Salle,  having  a  small  capital,  bought  a  tract  of 
land  at  the  head  of  the  rapids  now  called  La  Chine. 
Here  he  laid  out  a  palisaded  village,  and  built  for  his 
own  use  a  comfortable  log  house.  He  intended,  at  that 
time,  to  make  a  considerable  settlement  and  a  trading 


0     From  JVashir/J ten,  -"^Q 


G  UXF 

or 

7tf  E  :s:  I  c  o 


■/  '  -  Hiir  Qf  THE 

7ir/i£i:  GjiBAT  DIVISION'S 

OF  fKE 

UNITEP  STATES. 


20 


3  0  From  LojidoTL 


Mississippi   Valley, 

his  own  expenses.     He  was  therefore  just  the  kind  of 
a  man  that  Talon  was  looking  for. 

How  La  Salle  bought  an  outfit  that  loaded  four 
canoes,  and  hired  fourteen  men,  and  on  July  6,  1669, 
started  for  Lake  Ontario  need  not  be  told  in  detail. 
But  it  is  worth  mention  that  at  the  head  of  Lake  On- 
tario he  met  a  woods  ranger  named  Louis  Joliet  who 
had  been  hunting  for  Etienne  Brule's  copper  mine  on 
the  shores  of  Lake  Superior. 

The  copper  mine  was  not  found,  but  Joliet  had  come 
down  from  Mackinac  by  way  of  the  Detroit  river  and 
Lake  Erie,  and  was  the  first  white  man  to  pass  that 
way. 

From  the  head  of  Lake  Ontario,  La  Salle  went  to 
Onondaga,  where  he  obtained  a  guide,  and  thence  to  a 
point  on  a  branch  of  the  Ohio  river  supposed  to  be  "six 
or  seven  leagues  from  Lake  Erie."  This  he  followed 
into  the  "the  Beautiful  River"  itself,  and  eventually 
reached  the  falls  where  Louisville  now  stands. 

At  this  point  he  was  obliged  to  turn  back  because 
his  men  had  deserted  him.  It  was  an  ominous  be- 
ginning of  a  great  life  work. 

La  Salle's  reception  when  he  returned  to  Montreal 
alone,  was  humiliating.  In  establishing  the  post  at  the 
head  of  the  rapids  above  Montreal  he  had  incurred 
the  bitter  enmity  of  all  the  traders  doing  business  from 
Montreal  to  Quebec.  They  cowered  in  the  shadow 
of  the  forts;  he  had  dared  to  build  his  store  leagues 
away  in  the  wilderness.  His  bravery  made  conspicu- 
ous their  cowardice;  his  position  enabled  him  to  se- 
cure the  very  cream  of  the  trade.  The  enmity  had  been 
intense,  but  now,  here  was  the  Sieur  de  la  Salle,  back 

10 


A  History  of  the 

from  a  voyage  in  which  he  had  hoped  to  reach  China, 
baffled,  and  not  with  a  franc  left  of  all  that  he  had 
obtained  from  the  sale  of  his  well-located  trading  sta- 
tion. The  tumble  of  water  over  which  his  lost  home 
looked  was  the  only  China  he  had  discovered.  It  was 
a  good  joke  on  La  Salle.  They  would,  and  they  did, 
call  those  rapids  China — "La  Chine" — to  irritate  him. 
And  as  La  Chine  they  are  known  to  this  day. 

Nevertheless,  while  the  traders  sneered,  Jean  Bap- 
tiste  Talon,  the  intendant,  saw  that  the  man  who  would 
sink  his  all  in  such  an  expedition,  was  worthy  of  con- 
sideration ;  and  he  enabled  the  discomfited  La  Salle 
to  try  once  more.  But  for  this  expedition,  few  words 
will  suffice.  La  Salle  went  up  to  the  head  of  Lake 
Michigan  and  crossed  to  the  water  shed  of  the  Mis- 
sissippi. The  account  of  the  journey  says  he  went 
to  a  river  "which  flowed  from  east  to  west" — presum- 
ably the  Kankakee.  He  followed  it  until  it  was  joined 
by  another  river  coming  from  the  northwest.  This 
w^as  probably  the  Des  Plaines.  La  Salle,  like  Grosseil- 
liers  and  Radisson,  viewed  a  part  of  the  great  valley, 
but  so  far  he  had  accomplished  nothing  toward  set- 
tling it. 

Comparisons  are  instructive,  however  odious.  Li 
1634  when  Champlain  sent  Nicolet  to  visit  the  Indians 
on  the  west  side  of  Lake  Michigan,  the  inhabitants 
of  Massachusetts  thought  they  had  shown  great  en- 
terprise in  establishing  a  trading  station  on  the  Pis- 
cataqua  river  where  Dover,  New  Hampshire,  now 
stands;  w^hile  the  Virginia  settlers  had  recently  sent 
an  exploring  expedition  to  learn  whether  a  river  emp- 
tied into  Delaw'are  Bay. 

1 1 


JEAN    BAPTIST  I-:    TALCN. 
Intendant  of  New  France.     From  the  portrait  by  Hamel. 


II 


FIRST  EXPLORATION  OF  THE  MISSISSIPPI. 

The  Facts  about  Joliet's  Expedition  Down  the  Mississippi 
with  Father  Marquette  as  Chaplain  of  the  Com- 
pany— The  Kindly  Illinois  Indians  and  Their  Calu- 
met— Two  Views  of  a  River  "Monster" — Tennessee 
Indians  Whom  White  ]\Ien  Had  Visited — Fate  of 
the  Valiant  Quapaws — A  Far-Reaching  Mishap  to 
Joliet. 

To  the  honor  of  Jean  Baptiste  Talon,  Intendant 
of  Canada  from  1665  to  1675,  (save  for  a  few 
months),  be  it  remembered  that  he  not  only  saw  the 
value  of  the  broad  western  domain  w^here  Grosseil- 
lier  and  Radisson  first  carried  French  trade,  but  he 
took  steps  to  possess  it. 

In  1670,  when  he  sent  La  Salle  on  the  voyage  by 
the  way  of  Lake  INIichigan  and  the  Illinois,  toward 

13 


A  History  of  the 

the  Mississippi,  he  sent  Daumont  de  Saint-Lusson  to 
Lake  Superior  to  hunt  for  the  copper  mine  that  Jo- 
het  had  failed  to  find,  and  further  than  that  to  take 
formal  possession  of  the  upper  lake  region  in  the 
name  of  the  king.  Saint  Lusson  was  in  command,  but 
the  experienced  Joliet  was  guide,  and  without  mishap 
they  reached  the  Sault  Sainte  Marie,  erected  a  cross 
on  a  hill,  blessed  it,  sang  the  Vexilla  Regis,  planted  a 
cedar  post  to  which  was  attached  a  metal  plate  bear- 
ing the  royal  arms,  sang  the  Exaudiat,  and  then 
Saint  Lusson,  with  a  sword  in  one  hand  and  a  fresh 
sod  in  the  other,  uttered  a  fierce  gust  of  words  by 
which  he  said  he  took  possession  not  only  of  the  up- 
per great  lakes,  but  of  "all  countries,  rivers,  lakes  and 
streams  contiguous  and  adjacent  thereunto,"  includ- 
ing not  only  those  his  countrymen  had  already  dis- 
covered, but  "those  which  may  be  discovered  here- 
after." 

This  was  done  on  May  5,  1671.  It  had  taken  the 
French  government  thirty-seven  years  to  follow  the 
trail  of  Nicolet  as  far  as  the  Sault  Sainte  Marie. 

On  the  return  of  this  party  to  the  lower  St.  Law- 
rence, Talon  determined  on  one  more  exploration  of 
the  region;  and  Louis  Joliet  was  chosen  to  lead  the 
expedition. 

In  order  to  show  that  Louis  Joliet  and  not  some 
other  man  was  chosen  to  lead,  we  will  quote  the  orig- 
inal sources  of  information.  It  is  a  matter  of  great 
importance  because  it  was  this  expedition  that  did 
first  explore  the  Mississippi. 

Among  the  Paris  documents  printed  in  volume  ix. 
of  the  "New  York  Colonial  Manuscripts"  are  found 

14 


/ 


'^^~«.'- 


'# 


*  * 


'«t 


! 

1 

1 

» 

.±L 


#^ 


r 


.   .V 


# 


M ississipp  i    I  ^ alley. 

(pp.  90-94)  some  "Extracts  of  the  Memoirs  of  Mon- 
sieur de  Frontenac  to  the  Minister,"  Frontenac  be- 
ing Governor  of  Canada  and  Colbert  the  "minister." 
On  page  92  is  this  sentence  regarding  an  act  of  the 
Governor:  "He  has  hkewise  judged  it  expedient  for 
the  service  to  send  Sieur  JoHet  to  the  country  of  the 
Maskouteins,  to  discover  the  South  Sea,  and  the  great 
river  they  call  the  Mississippi." 

In  volume  Iviii.  of  Thwaite's  edition  of  the  Jesuit 
^'Relations,"  pp.  93,  95,  is  a  letter  from  Father  Claude 
Dablon,  the  Superior  of  the  Order  at  Quebec,  dated 
August  I,  1674,  which  says  that  "two  years  ago"  it 
was  "decided  that  it  was  important  *  *  to  ascer- 
tain into  what  sea  falls  the  great  river,  about  which 
the  Sauvages  relate  so  much.  For  this  purpose  they 
could  not  have  selected  a  person  endowed  with  bet- 
ter qualities  than  is  Sieur  Joliet,  who  has  travelled 
much  in  that  region,  and  has  acquitted  himself  in  this 
task  with  all  the  ability  that  could  be  desired." 

In  the  introduction  which  Father  Claude  Dablon 
wrote  to  jMarquette's  journal  of  this  expedition,  as 
printed  in  the  "Relations,"  vol.  lix.,  pp.  87,  89,  are 
these  words: 

"In  the  year  1673,  Monsieur  The  Count  de  Fron- 
tenac, Our  Governor,  and  Monsieur  Talon  then  Our 
Intendant,  Recognizing  The  Importance  of  this  dis- 
covery *  *  *  these  gentlemen,  I  say,  appointed 
at  the  same  time  for  this  undertaking  Sieur  Joliet, 
whom  they  considered  very  fit  for  so  great  an  enter- 
prise; and  they  were  well  pleased  that  Father  Mar- 
quette should  be  of  the  party." 

Let  there  be  no  mistake  about  Father  Marquette. 

15 


A  History  of  the 

He  was  the  friend  and  companion  as  well  as  the  as- 
sistant of  Joliet.  They  had  often  consulted  about 
this  expedition  before  Joliet  obtained  his  com- 
mission, and  it  had  been  fully  understood  that  Joliet 
should  take  him  along.  But  one  might  as  well  give 
the  credit  of  the  battle  of  Manila  to  the  chaplain  of 
the  flagship  as  to  give  IMarquette  the  credit  of  the 
first  exploration  of  the  Mississippi  River.  The  man 
of  the  expedition  was  Joliet.  And  yet  a  statue  has  been 
erected  in  the  capitol  at  Washington  to  the  honor  of 
the  chaplain. 

With  his  outfit  in  two  canoes,  and  five  able  con- 
reurs  de  hois  to  help  him,  Louis  Joliet  left  Quebec  on 
an  unnamed  day  in  the  fall  of  1672,  and  on  December 
8  arrived  at  the  mission  of  St.  Ignace,  in  the  strait  of 
Mackinac,  where  he  found  Father  Marquette  and  the 
Indian  converts  celebrating  the  feast  of  the  Immacu- 
late Conception. 

At  this  mission  the  winter  was  passed,  because  the 
journey  was  to  be  made  by  water;  but  on  "The  17th 
of  May,  1673,  we  started,"  and  "the  joy  that  we  felt 
animated  our  courage  and  rendered  the  labor  of  pad- 
dling from  morning  till  night  agreeable."  So  wrote 
Father  Marquette.  "We  were  going  to  seek  unknown 
countries."  They  crossed  Lake  Michigan  and  visited 
the  wild  rice  Indians  on  Green  Bay,  who,  when  they 
learned  the  object  of  the  expedition,  "were  greatly 
surprised."  The  route  lay  through  "Nations  who 
never  show  mercy  to  strangers,"  they  said ;  moreover 
"the  great  river"  was  full  of  monsters  that  destroyed 
canoes  and  men  together,  and  there  was  one  particular 
demon — when   the   Indians    spoke    of   him    the   mere 

16 


Mississippi    Valley. 

thought  made  them  tremble.  And  then  there  was  the 
heat.  Even  if  the  Frenchmen's  medicine  enabled 
them  to  dodge  the  devils  the  heat  would  kill  them 
without  doubt. 

But  Joliet  had  heard  Indians  talk  in  that  manner 
before,  and  he  soon  passed  up  the  Fox  River,  and  fin- 
ally reached  a  village  composed  of  Miamies,  Kicka- 
poes  and  Mascoutens.  A  most  beautiful  country  was 
that  around  the  village.  "From  an  eminence  upon 
which  it  is  placed  one  beholds  on  every  side  prairies, 
extending  further  than  the  eye  can  see,  interspersed 
with  groves  or  with  lofty  trees.  The  soil  is  very  fer- 
tile and  yields  much  Indian  corn.  The  sauvages  ga- 
ther quantities  of  plums  and  grapes." 

It  is  a  far  cry  to  the  day  of  Joliet,  but  the  region 
is  as  beautiful  and  as  productive  now  as  when  it  de- 
lighted" the  eyes  of  these  explorers,  for  it  is  that  lying 
west  and  south  of  Lake  Winnebago. 

The  kindly  Indians  gave  the  party  two  guides  who 
showed  the  way  "to  the  portage  of  2,700  paces"  to  "a 
river  which  discharged  into  the  IMississippi,"  and 
helped  them  to  carry  their  canoes  across  the  land.  Por- 
tage City,  Wisconsin,  a  railroad  centre  of  importance, 
now  stands  on  this  crest  between  the  waters  of  the 
great  lakes  and  those  of  the  Mississippi. 

After  "a  new  devotion  to  the  blessed  Virgin  im- 
maculate," they  launched  forth  on  the  Wisconsin  river, 
which  they  called  the  Meskousing.  It  was  "full  of 
islands  covered  with  vines."  The  banks  were  of  "fer- 
tile land,  diversified  with  woods,  prairies  and  hills." 
There  were  "oak,  walnut  and  basswood  trees."  and 
another   kind    very   interesting   to    them    for   it    was 

17 


A  History  of  the 

"armed  with  long  thorns."  And  there  were  the  deer, 
and  herds  of  huge  wild  "cattle,"  as  they  called  the 
buffalo. 

For  "40  leagues  on  this  same  route,"  as  Marquette 
estimated  the  distance,  they  paddled  with  the  cur- 
rent, and  then  "We  safely  entered  Mississippi  on  the 
17th  of  June,  with  a  joy  that  I  cannot  express." 

To  the  right  was  "a  large  chain  of  very  high  moun- 
taines,"  or  so  they  seemed  in  the  sunlit  air;  to  the  left 
were  "beautiful  lands."  The  stream  was  "divided  by 
islands."  And  as  they  "gently  followed  its  course" 
the  mountains  fell  away,  the  islands  became  if  possible 
"more  beautiful,"  and  "covered  with  finer  trees,  while 
the  prairies  were  fairly  covered  with  deer  and  Cattle," 
and  the  waters  swarmed  with  "bustards  and  Swans." 

Then  there  were  the  monstrous  fish,  one  of  which 
"struck  our  Canoe  with  such  violence  that  I  thought 
it  was  a  great  tree,  about  to  break  the  canoe  in  pieces." 

Quite  as  interesting  if  less  dangerous  was  another 
"monster,  with  the  head  of  a  tiger,  a  sharp  nose  like 
that  of  a  wildcat,  with  whiskers  and  straight  erect 
ears,"  which  they  saw  swimming. 

To  the  eyes  of  this  wondering  Frenchman  it  was  a 
land  of  enchanting  beauties.  For  over  "one  hundred 
leagues"  they  paddled  "without  discovering  any  thing 
except  animals  and  birds,"  but  they  kept  a  good  look- 
out, nevertheless,  building  only  small  fires  when  cook- 
ing their  food,  (Indian  corn,  fish  and  dried  meat), 
and  sleeping  in  their  canoes  anchored  in  the  river  "at 
some  distance  from  the  shore." 

Finally  they  saw  a  "somewhat  beaten  path  lead- 
ing to  a  fine  prairie."    This,  Joliet  and  Marquette  fol- 

18 


Mississippi   Valley. 

lowed,  leaving  the  canoes  afloat,  until  they  saw  three 
villages,  and  were  so  near  to  one  that  they  could  hear 
the  voices  of  the  inhabitants.  Then  they  stopped  and 
shouted  as  loud  as  they  could. 

At  that  "the  sauvages  quickly  issued  from  their 
cabins,"  and  stopped  and  gazed  for  a  time  in  wonder 
at  the  white  men.  Then  four  old  men  advanced,  two 
of  whom  "bore  tobacco  pipes,  finely  ornamented  and 
adorned  with  various  feathers.  They  walked  slowly, 
and  raised  their  pipes  toward  the  sun,  without  saying 
a  word" — a  method  of  worship  not  without  one  com- 
mendable feature,  although  Marquette  does  not  say  so. 

It  was  soon  learned  that  these  Indians  were  of  the 
Illinois  tribe.  They  took  the  strangers  to  their  village, 
and  when  the  chief  met  them  he  held  up  his  hands  as 
if  to  shade  his  eyes  and  said,  with  a  grace  that  even 
men  of  "the  most  polite  nation"  could  not  have  ex- 
ceeded: "How  beautiful  the  sun  is,  O  Frenchmen, 
when  thou  comest  to  visit  us!  Our  village  awaits 
thee,  and  thou  shalt  enter  all  our  cabins  in  peace." 

Learning  that  the  Frenchmen  were  to  explore  the 
full  length  of  the  river,  these  Indians  gave  them  a 
pipe  of  peace — the  Calumet — which  Marquette  de- 
scribes in  detail.  It  had  a  stone  bowl  with  a  reed  stem 
which  was  ornamented  with  the  most  beautiful  feath- 
ers and  bird  heads  obtainable.  In  their  way  the 
Indians  used  the  Calumet,  when  worshipping  the  sun, 
as  Father  IMarquette  used  the  Host  in  his  church  cere- 
monies. The  chief  elevated  the  pipe  before  the  sun 
and  the  people  as  the  priest  elevated  the  Host  in  the 
communion  services. 

The  special  value  of  this  pipe  to  the  Frenchmen 

19 


A  History  of  the 

was  in  its  use  as  a  symbol  of  peace.  They  were  going 
into  a  country  where  the  red  inhabitants  would  drop 
their  weapons,  even  during  the  most  desperate  battle, 
if  the  calumet  were  displayed ;  and  with  this  to  protect 
them  the  explorers  left  their  new  friends  "at  the  end  of 
June,  about  three  o'clock  in  the  afternoon." 

Very  soon  they  came  to  the  great  Missouri,  with 
its  dominating,  debris-laden  current,  and  then  on  a 
precipice  that  towered  high  on  the  eastern  bank — a 
precipice  that  by  its  ''height  and  length  inspired 
awe" — they  found  the  monsters,  the  mere  thought 
of  which  had  made  the  Indians  of  Green  Bay  tremble 
with  fear.  So  terrible  were  these  monsters,  says  the 
priest,  that  they  "at  first  made  Us  afraid."  "They  are 
as  large  as  a  calf;  they  have  horns  on  their  heads  as 
large  as  a  deer,  a  horrible  look,  red  eyes,  a  beard  like 
a  tiger's,  a  face  somewhat  like  a  man's,  a  body  covered 
with  scales,  and  so  long  a  tail  that  it  winds  all  around 
the  body,  passing  above  the  head  and  going  back  be- 
tween the  legs,  ending  in  a  Fish's  tail." 

However,  if  afraid  of  it  "at  first,"  Marquette  re- 
covered his  courage  far  enough  to  make  sketches  of 
the  monsters,  and  was  even  able  to  praise  them,  at 
last,  saying,  "those  two  monsters  are  so  well  painted 
that  we  cannot  believe  that  any  sauvage  {sauvage,  i.  e., 
wild  man)  is  their  author."  He  adds  that  "green,  red 
and  black  are  the  three  colors  that  compose  the  pic- 
ture." 

To  Joutel,  who  wrote  the  story  of  La  Salle's  final 
exploring  expedition,  these  famous  monsters  were  by 
no  means  fearsome.  His  account  speaks  of  them  as 
Marquette's  "pretended"  monsters,  and  says  that  they 

20 


ur 


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>, 


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■#• 


■'^^l*'^ 


S^-*^ 


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^ 


Mississippi   Valley. 

consist  of  "two  scurvy  figures  drawn  in  red,  on  the  flat 
side  of  a  rock,  about  ten  or  twelve  feet  high,  which 
wants  very  much  of  the  extraordinary  height  that  Re- 
lation mentions." 

These  pictures  were  painted  on  the  rocks  on  the 
east  side  of  the  Mississippi,  just  above  Alton,  Illinois. 
The  paint  was  worn  away  long  ago,  and  in  1867  the 
owner  of  the  land  was  quarrying  out  the  rock  to  supply 
the  needs  of  tlie  growing  community. 

One  statement  made  by  ]\Iarquette  regarding  the 
Missouri  must  be  considered.  He  said  he  learned 
from  the  Indians  that  a  stream  rising  near  its  source 
flowed  "towards  the  west  where  it  falls  into  The  sea." 
He  thought  it  must  empty  into  the  Gulf  of  California. 
We  know  now  that  the  head  waters  of  the  Platte,  a 
tributary  of  the  Missouri,  lie  near  the  head  of  the 
Colorado,  which  flows  to  the  Gulf  of  California.  And 
at  the  head  of  Jackson's  Hole,  in  Wyoming,  is  a  tiny 
stream  called  Two-Oceans  Creek,  which  rises  high  on 
a  mountain,  and  flows  down  to  a  saddle-back  ridge 
where  it  divides,  the  one  part  running  down  to  Snake 
River,  whose  waters  reach  the  Pacific,  and  the  other 
part  running  down  the  Missouri,  whose  waters  reach 
the  Gulf  of  Alexico. 

They  found  at  one  point  above  the  Ohio  (which 
appears  on  his  map  as  the  Ouabouskigou),  a  whirlpool 
that  was  dangerous,  and  that  was  the  "monster"  that 
drowned  canoes  as  well  as  men;  but  this  expedition 
crossed  it  without  mishap. 

Below  the  Ohio  the  explorers  saw,  on  one  unnamed 
day,  some  Indians  on  the  east  bank  of  the  Mississippi, 
who  were  "armed  with  guns."     More  interesting  still, 

21 


A  History  of  the 

when  the  explorers  landed,  they  found  "hatchets,  hoes, 
knives,  beads  and  flasks  of  double  glass,  in  which  they 
put  Their  powder." 

"They  assured  us,"  writes  Marquette,  "that  they 
bought  Cloth  and  all  other  goods  from  Europeans  who 
lived  to  The  east,  that  these  Europeans  had  rosaries 
and  pictures ;  that  they  played  upon  instruments ;  that 
some  of  them  looked  like  me,  and  had  been  received 
by  these  sauvages  kindly." 

This  statement,  which  is  found  in  Marquette's  own 
story  of  this  exploration  (p.  149,  vol.  lix  Thwaite's 
Jesuit  "Relations"),  seems  plain  and  easily  understood. 
The  fact  that  the  implements  made  by  white  men  were 
found  in  considerable  numbers  and  variety  among  the 
Indians  confirms  the  statement.  "Europeans  (trad- 
ers) had  been  received  by  these  sauvages  kindly." 

"This  news  animated  our  courage,  and  made  us 
paddle  with  Fresh  ardor,"  writes  Marquette.  They 
passed  cottonwood,  elm  and  basswood  trees  that  were 
"admirable  for  Their  height  and  thickness."  They 
saw  "Quail  on  the  water's  edge."  They  heard  the 
bellow  of  the  buffalo.  They  killed  a  paroquet  that  was 
very  beautiful.  And  then  they  "perceived  a  village  on 
the  water's   edge  called  Mitchegamea." 

This  is  said  to  have  been  located  at  the  mouth  of 
the  St.  Francis  River,  that  empties  into  the  Mississippi 
near  Helena,  Arkansas.  The  people  of  it  were  at  first 
hostile.  They  came  well  armed  to  the  bank,  yelling, 
the  while,  in  fearsome  fashion,  embarked  in  great  dug- 
outs, and  surrounded  the  canoes.  They  even  came 
swimming  to  board  the  Frenchmen,  and  one  warrior 
hurled  his  club  with  deadly  force,  but  when  they  saw 

22 


^J 


Mississippi  J  ^ alley. 

the  calumet  their  passions  passed  away  instantly,  and 
they  conducted  the  explorers  to  the  shore  where  a 
dinner  of  boiled  corn  and  fish  was  prepared. 

A  most  interesting  tribe  was  that.  They  worshipped 
the  sun  because  it  was  a  beneficent  mystery.  They 
were  ruled  by  a  clan  supposed  to  be  descended  from  the 
sun.  They  had  a  temple  in  which  a  sacred  fire  was 
kept  burning.  They  lived  in  adobe  houses.  They  cul- 
tivated the  earth  successfully.  They  were  valiant  war- 
riors, but  they  were,  at  this  particular  time,  in  no  little 
trouble  because  the  Illinois  Indians  from  the  north, 
and  the  tribes  east  of  the  Great  River,  were  well  sup- 
plied with  guns  and  often  came  to  the  Arkansas  region 
searching  for  slaves. 

In  after  years  they,  too,  obtained  guns,  and  then 
they  promptly  recovered  the  standing  as  warriors, 
which  they  had  held  before  their  enemies  procured 
guns.  Of  the  Indians  of  the  Mississippi  Valley  there 
were  no  more  generous  or  capable  warriors  than  these. 

Their  descendants  are  now  known  as  the  Quapaws, 
who  live  on  the  reservation  at  the  extreme  northeast 
corner  of  the  Indian  Territory — a  most  pitiful  rem- 
nant, that  in  1900  numbered  251,  chiefly  of  mixed 
bloods,  of  whom  twenty-five  were  "engaged  in  civil- 
ized pursuits." 

At  a  village  "8  or  10  leagues  lower  down,"  Joliet 
turned  back.  He  learned  that  the  Gulf  of  Mexico 
"could  not  be  more  than  2  or  3  days  journey"  away  to 
the  south,  but  he  did  not  go  to  it  because  he  feared  he 
would  be  captured  by  Spaniards,  and  thus  be  unable 
to  make  a  report  of  his  discoveries. 

He  started  home  on  July   17.     On  the  way  the 
23 


A  History  of  the 

party  passed  up  the  Illinois  River,  "which  greatly 
shortens  our  route,"  as  Marquette  writes.  How  they 
knew  that  it  would  shorten  their  road  is  not  explained. 
The  soil  and  the  beauty  of  the  country,  and  the  wild 
animals  found  there  aroused  the  enthusiasm  of  the 
travellers.  "Even  beaver"  were  found  here,  and  what 
was  better,  the  portage  into  the  lakes  watershed  was, 
in  spring  and  part  of  the  summer,  but  half  a  league 
long.  The  Indians  along  the  route  received  them  with 
pleasure  and  helped  them  on  their  way ;  and  at  the  end 
of  September  they  were  back  in  Green  Bay. 

It  had  been  a  most  pleasing  and  successful  voyage 
thus  far,  but  it  was  marred  by  one  serious  accident  ere 
Joliet  reached  Quebec.  In  passing  down  the  St.  Law- 
rence his  canoe  was  upset,  and  for  four  hours  he 
fought  for  his  life  in  the  tumbling  waters.  He  finally 
escaped,  but  his  papers  were  lost  forever.  It  is  chiefly 
because  historians  have  had  to  take  the  story  of  the 
exploration  from  Marquette's  account,  that  the  in- 
trepid leader  of  the  expedition  has  been  usually  treated 
as  a  mere  assistant  to  the  chaplain. 


24 


ROBERT    CAVELIEK,     SIEUR    DE    LA    SALLE. 


Ill 


LA  SALLE  AND  LOUISIANA. 

The  Splendid  Record  of  the  Greatest  of  French  Ex- 
plorers— The  Fort  Above  Niagara  Falls — A  Gale  that 
Showed  the  Metal  of  One  Good  Salt-Sea  Sailor — 
Mutinies  Under  La  Salle  and  Their  Origin — At  the 
Mouth  of  the  Mississippi  at  Last — The  Sixth  Fort  in 
the  Chain — La  Salle  Received  at  Court — Assassinated 
in  the  Texas  Wilderness — The  Highest  Tributes  of 
Honor  Paid  to  La  Salle  Found  in  the  Deeds  of  His 
Enemies. 


When  in  the  fall  of  1672,  Joliet  started  on  his  ex- 
pedition to  the  Mississippi,  the  unfortunate  La  Salle 
was  trading  on  borrowed  capital  to  make  a  living.  He 
had  done  nothing  better,  in  the  eyes  of  his  country- 
men, than  to  throw  away  an  excellent  estate  and  give 
the  derisive  name  of  La  Chine  to  the  rapids  over  which 

25 


A  History  of  the 

that  estate  looked.  He  had  done  worse,  in  fact,  ac- 
cording to  their  thinking,  for  while  a  Government  ex- 
pedition was  on  its  way  to  explore  the  great  river, 
this  bankrupt  was  meditating  schemes  for  colonizing 
the  vast  region  drained  by  the  stream !  He — La  Salle 
— was  to  do  this!  The  cackle  of  his  countrymen,  as 
they  talked  of  his  audacity  in  proposing  such  a  work, 
never  reached  the  stage  of  the  horse  laugh — their 
throats  were  not  built  that  way — but  it  was  becoming 
incessant,  when  it  was  suddenly  cut  short  and  turned 
into  snarls  of  rage. 

Though  a  bankrupt,  and  the  laughing  stock  of  the 
traders  sitting  beside  the  forts  of  Montreal  and  Que- 
bec, La  Salle  had  attracted  the  attention  of  the  new 
Governor,  Count  de  Frontenac.  Frontenac,  as  a  sol- 
dier, had  won  by  good  fighting,  the  rank  of  brigadier 
general  when  only  twenty-six  years  old.  Now,  at  the 
age  of  fifty-two,  he  had  come  to  Canada  bearing  laurels 
but  recently  earned  in  Candia.  "He  was  a  man  of 
excellent  parts,"  by  whatever  standard  tried — one  of 
the  few  who  raised  the  French  in  New  France  above 
utter  contempt.    (Parkman). 

When  Frontenac  looked  over  the  land  he  had  come 
to  cultivate,  he  saw,  as  Intendant  Talon  had  seen,  that 
it  was  worth  while  to  add  the  unoccupied  land  lying 
to  the  west  and  south-west.  He  saw,  too,  as  Talon 
had  seen  less  clearly,  that  among  the  cackling  mass 
of  citizens,  La  Salle  towered  high,  and  "he  often  took 
council"  of  him.  To  Count  Frontenac,  the  schemes 
of  La  Salle  v/ere  not  visionary.  They  showed  the  way 
to  add  glory  to  the  crown  of  Louis  XIV,  and  at  the 
same  time  gain  great  wealth  for  the  promoters  of  the 

26 


Mississippi   Valley. 

scheme — a  matter  of  no  small  consequence  to  both 
Frontenac  and  La  Salle,  for  both  were  bankrupts. 

La  Salle,  backed  by  Frontenac,  purposed  building 
a  line  of  forts  from  Lake  Ontario  to  the  mouth  of  the 
Mississippi.  It  was  a  magnificent  conception  for  ter- 
ritorial aggrandizement.  He  also  purposed  controlling 
the  trading  stations  at  each  fort — to  make  of  them  a 
source  of  wealth  "beyond  the  dreams  of  avarice,"  and 
to  carry  on  this  trade  by  the  way  of  the  Gulf  of 
Mexico. 

When  on  May  17,  1673,  Joliet  left  Mackinac,  bound 
on  the  exploring  expedition  down  the  Mississippi, 
La  Salle  was  among  the  Iroquois  inviting  them  to 
come  to  the  bay  at  the  northeast  corner  of  Lake  On- 
tario, where  Kingston  now  stands,  to  meet  Count 
Frontenac,  Governor  of  Canada.  They  called  that  bay 
Cataraqui,  then. 

On  June  28,  about  the  time  that  Joliet  was  leaving 
the  Illinois  village  at  the  mouth  of  the  Desmoines, 
Frontenac  left  Montreal  with  "400  men  and  120  ca- 
noes, besides  two  large  flat  boats,  which  he  caused  to 
be  painted  red  and  blue,  with  strange  devices  intended 
to  dazzle  the  Iroquois  by  a  display  of  unwonted  splen- 
dor." 

No  idle  commander  was  Frontenac.  "Without 
a  cloak  and  drenched  to  the  skin"  he  directed  his  men 
as  they  toiled,  neck  deep,  up  the  rapids,  or  "tracked" 
along  the  banks  in  the  midst  of  pouring  rains. 

And  then  on  July  13,  while  Joliet  was  among  the 
Arkansas  Indians,  Frontenac  first  met  the  Iroquois. 
Lines  of  soldiers — some  of  them  veterans — were  sta- 
tioned   from    Frontenac's   tent   to   the    Indian   camp. 

27 


A  History  of  the 

Between  these  lines  the  sixty  chiefs  were  conducted 
to  the  tent,  and  when  they  arrived,  stohd  and  self- 
possessed  at  they  naturally  were  on  such  grave  occa- 
sions, they  "ejaculated  their  astonishment"  at  the  gor- 
geous array  of  uniforms  on  the  Governor's  guards. 
And  they  found  in  the  Governor  a  man  with  a  dignity 
and  a  command  of  language  equal  to  their  own,  and  a 
graciousness  withal  that  was  as  winning  as  his  bear- 
ing was  in  other  ways  commanding. 

It  has  been  often  said  that  the  the  gunshots  of 
Champlain,  near  Ticonderoga,  gained  for  the  French 
people  the  everlasting  hatred  of  the  Iroquois.  It  is 
not  true.  No  white  man  ever  won  the  hearts  of  the 
Iroquois  as  Frontenac  did  at  Cataraqui,  until  Sir 
William  Johnson  came  among  them. 

For  while  he  talked  to  the  chiefs  in  flowing  lan- 
guage, and  gave  overcoats,  and  caressed  their  babies, 
he  built  a  fort  under  their  eyes  without  ever  exciting 
a  word  or  a  thought  of  protest.  It  was  the  first  of 
the  chain  of  forts  that  La  Salle  had  planned.  At  a 
single  stroke  Frontenac  made  peace  with  these  most 
formidable  enemies,  and  placed  French  guns  where 
they  would  command  the  Indian  trade  of  the  great 
lakes.  The  further  truth  is  that  in  the  years  imme- 
diately preceding  the  advent  of  Frontenac  the  Iroquois 
had  held  no  special  hatred  against  the  French,  but  had 
despised  them  as  easy  victims  of  plundering  raids.  And 
it  may  be  added  here  that  the  power  of  the  Iroquois 
nation  waned  steadily,  if  slowly,  from  the  day  that 
Frontenac  met  them. 

Having  secured  a  post  on  Lake  Ontario,  Fron- 
tenac sent  La  Salle  to  France.     La  Salle  asked  the 

28 


Mississippi   Valley. 

king  for  "a.  grant  in  seigniory  of  Fort  Frontenac,  for 
so  he  called  the  new  post  in  honor  of  his  patron,"  and 
for  "a  patent  of  nobility,  in  consideration  of  his  ser- 
vices as  an  explorer." 

Both  petitions  were  granted,  and  La  Salle  returned 
to  his  new  wilderness  post  a  feudal  lord,  and  the  head 
of  the  best  fur  trading  station  in  the  world.  The  price 
he  had  agreed  to  pay  for  these  great  acquisitions  was 
moderate.  He  was  to  return  to  the  king  the  cost  of  the 
fort — 10,000  francs. — maintain  a  garrison  equal  to 
that  of  Montreal,  employ  at  least  fifteen  laborers,  build 
a  church,  support  a  Recollet  friar,  form  a  settlement 
of  friendly  Indians,  and  replace  the  wooden  walls  of 
the  fort  with  stone — all  of  which  he  did  in  good  faith. 

But  there  was  an  additional  cost,  not  down  in  the 
contract,  and  this  he  was  compelled  to  pay,  even  with 
his  heart's  blood — the  losses  and  costs  due  to  the  envy 
and  malice  of  those  who  had  sneered  and  cackled 
when  he  was  down,  and  who  now  writhed  and  screamed 
when  they  found  him  planted  in  the  current  of  beaver 
skins  coming  from  the  upper  lakes.  In  establishing 
this  trading  station  Frontenac  and  La  Salle  had  taken 
in  as  partners  a  half  dozen  of  rich  traders  of  the  St. 
Lawrence.  All  Canada  besides  these  and  their  friends, 
turned,  like  Indians  in  the  bush,  upon  this  monopoliz- 
ing aggregation.  1 

Nor  was  that  all.  Frontenac  hated  the  Jesuits. 
His  quarrels  with  them  over  matters  of  precedence  in 
public  functions  were  most  virulent,  for  tliat  was  the 
day  when  Louis  XIV  ruled  "the  politest"  nation. 
Frontenac  also  quarrelled  with  the  seminary  priests 
of  Montreal.     In  all  these  matters  La   Salle  openly 

29 


A  History  of  the 

"declared  himself  an  adherent  of  the  Governor."  Time 
had  been  when  La  Salle  would  avoid  trouble  by  what 
the  French  called  "address,"  but  now  he  stood  by  his 
patron,  man-fashion.  And  for  a  time  his  manliness 
and  abiHty  prevailed. 

A  settlement  came  into  existence  at  Cataraqui. 
Four  sailing  vessels  of  from  twenty-five  to  forty  tons 
each,  were  built  to  gather  furs  around  the  lake.  The 
vast  commerce  of  the  great  lakes  began  at  Kingston. 
For  the  trade  on  the  rivers,  canoes  were  used,  and  in 
managing  these  La  Salle's  men  "were  reputed  the  best 
in  America."  His  soldiers  were  well  disciplined.  His 
farm  hands  raised  good  crops.  And  the  trade  of  the 
fort  soon  amounted  to  a  profit  of  25.000  livres  a  year. 

This  success  exasperated  the  opponents  of  La 
Salle  to  the  last  degree.  Nothing  but  his  death  would 
satisfy  them,  and  their  efforts  to  accomplish  this  were 
characteristic.  One  merchant,  says  Parkman,  while 
pretending  friendship,  compelled  his  wife  to  attempt 
the  act  of  Potiphar's  wife,  while  he  (the  merchant), 
well  armed,  waited  in  an  adjoining  room  for  a  sig- 
nal. He  thought  he  should  have  excuse  for  killing 
an  unarmed  man,  but  La  Salle  put  the  woman  out 
of  the  room  at  the  first  advance,  and  then  discovered 
the  scoundrel  in  waiting  outside  the  door.  And  an- 
other pretended  friend  mixed  verdigris  and  water  hem- 
lock in  a  salad,  of  which  La  Salle  ate  a  portion;  but 
he  recovered  from  the  effects  of  the  poison. 

In  the  meantime  the  Jesuit  missionaries  among  the 
Iroquois  told  them  that  La  Salle  was  building  stone 
walls  at  Fort  Frontenac  in  order  to  make  it  a  base  for 
an  aggressive  war  against  the  Five  Nations. 

30 


•) 


ARE    HERE    SHOWN. 


-^4^^ 


Mississippi    Valley. 

In  the  midst  of  such  contests  with  his  enemies, 
La  Salle,  not  at  all  daunted  or  discouraged,  went  to 
France  once  more,  obtained  a  new  commission,  and 
came  back  not  only  to  explore  the  whole  length  of  the 
Mississippi,  but  to  build  the  chain  of  forts  and  trad- 
ing stations  already  mentioned  along  the  route  to  the 
mouth  of  the  Great  River.  He  was  particularly  anx- 
ious for  an  establishment  at  the  mouth  of  the  Missis- 
sippi because  he  could  there  rule  and  trade  free  from 
the  attacks  of  the  hosts  on  the  St.  Lawrence. 

This  great  work  was  to  be  done,  however,  with- 
out any  financial  aid  from  the  government,  and  one 
gets  a  curious  view  of  La  Salle's  character,  and  of 
the  business  methods  of  the  day,  from  a  statement 
of  the  way  he  raised  money  for  the  enterprise.  He 
borrowed  ii,ooo  livres  from  a  merchant  named  Fran- 
cois Plet,  agreeing  to  pay  forty  per  cent  interest,  and 
he  pledged  Fort  Frontenac,  the  magnificent  establish- 
ment yielding  25,000  livres  annual  income,  for  the 
paltry  loan  of  14,000  livres,  on  w^hich,  presumably, 
he  paid  the  same  deadly  rate  of  interest. 

La  Salle  returned  from  France  late  in  1678.  Hav- 
ing obtained  the  needed  loans  he  sent  fifteen  men 
to  the  Lake  Michigan  region  to  trade  with  the  Indians 
in  order  that  he  might  make  the  money  to  pay  the 
enormous  interest  on  his  loans.  On  November  18, 
another  party,  under  an  assistant  named  La  Mott 
sailed  for  Niagara  river  (where  they  arrived  on  De- 
cember 6),  to  build  a  fort  that  would  control  the 
portage  around  the  Niagara  Falls,  and  a  ship  with 
which  to  navigate  the  lakes  above. 

This   fort  was  the  second  built  according  to   La 
31 


A  History  of  the 

Salle's  plan  for  adding  the  Alississippi  Valley  to  the 
dominions  of  France.  The  point  selected  was  at  the 
little  hamlet  called  La  Salle  opposite  Cayuga  Island  in 
the  Niagara  River,  The  Seneca  Indians  "betrayed  a 
sullen  jealousy."  They  had  been  in  trade  themselves. 
They  were  middlemen  between  the  western  Indians 
and  the  settlements  on  the  Hudson.  Among  them 
were  two  missionaries  from  Quebec  who  were  sided 
with  the  enemies  of  La  Salle,  and  who  did  all  they 
could  to  excite  the  astute  chiefs  still  further.  But 
La  Salle  went  to  the  principal  village  and  soothed  them 
into  consenting  to  his  work. 

Then  a  disaster  came  on  the  heels  of  this  success. 
A  vessel  loaded  with  rigging  for  the  new  ship  La  Salle 
was  building  above  the  falls  was  wrecked.  It  is 
charged  that  the  pilot  wrecked  her  in  the  interests 
of  La  Salle's  enemies,  and  it  is  certain  that  his  enemies 
were  eager  and  unscrupulous,  while  he  never  had  the 
skill  to  bind  his  men  to  him. 

Out  of  the  wreck  La  Salle  saved  but  little.  Mean- 
time his  men  were  in  a  turmoil.  Under  the  strain 
La  Salle's  health  failed,  but  he  kept  the  work  moving, 
being  aided  by  a  most  capable  lieutenant  named  Tonti, 
a  notable  man  in  a  variety  of  ways — a  man  who  had 
placed  an  iron  hand  on  the  end  of  his  arm  because  his 
natural  hand  had  been  shot  away  in  battle,  and  who 
had  a  will  to  match  the  new  member  thus  obtained. 

La  Salle,  being  obliged  to  go  back  to  Ft.  Frontenac 
for  more  rigging,  left  Tonti  in  command.  The  work 
went  on  more  smoothly  thereafter,  for  Tonti  kept  the 
gang  in  awe  by  a  free  use  of  his  iron  fist. 

Accordingly,  when  the  ice  broke  up  in  the  spring 
32 


Mississippi   Valley. 

of  1679,  the  new  ship — the  first  ever  placed  on  Lake 
Erie — was  launched,  and  fitted  with  the  rigging  and 
five  small  cannon  which  La  Salle  brought  for  her.  She 
carried  as  a  figure  head  a  rudely  carved  grifiin,  and 
she  was  named  the  Grifiin,  because  Frontenac's  coat  of 
arms  bore  a  griffin. 

"La  Salle  had  often  been  heard  to  say  that  he 
would  make  the  griffin  fly  above  the  crows" — would 
"make  Frontenac  triumph  over  the  Jesuits."  He  got 
the  ship  ready  for  her  voyage,  but  he  had  to  tell  his 
company,  meantime,  that  all  his  property  in  Canada, 
including  Ft.  Frontenac,  had  been  seized  by  his  cred- 
itors, who  had  become  frightened  by  the  persistent 
rumors  kept  going  by  his  enemies,  that  the  enterprise 
was  visionary,  and  that  La  Salle  would  never  return. 
Those  whom  he  called  "the  crows"  were  enemies  not 
to  be  despised. 

Though  in  a  most  desperate  condition  of  affairs. 
La  Salle  pushed  on.  A  storm  on  Lake  Huron  fright- 
ened all  hands  save  one,  until  they  all  knelt  to  pray. 
But  the  pilot, — wicked,  capable  sailor  that  he  was — 
held  her  nose  to  the  wind  and  cursed  the  sniffling  mob 
that  grovelled  at  the  foot  of  an  image  of  St.  Anthony 
of  Padua. 

A  Recollet  friar,  named  Louis  Hennepin,  was  chap- 
lain of  the  expedition,  and  its  historian.  He  says 
he  bribed  St.  Anthony  into  stilling  the  tempest,  but  we 
will  believe  that  the  good  salt  sea  sailor  who  stood 
at  the  helm,  brought  the  Griffin  out  of  the  trouble. 

La  Salle  escaped  the  gale,  but  only  to  find  more 
trouble.  IVIackinac  was  then  the  resort  of  the  unli- 
censed traders  and  courcurs-de-hois  who  bought  and 


A  History  of  the 

sold  where  they  could.  They  carried  their  furs  to 
Albany  quite  as  often  as  to  Quebec;  for  Dutch  rum 
would  exhilerate  as  well  as  French  brandy,  and  Dutch 
maidens  were  not  to  be  ignored  or  despised.  Moreover 
furs  bought  more  of  the  joys  of  life  in  Albany  than  in 
Quebec. 

These  reckless  woods  rangers  saw  that  La  Salle 
would  interfere  with  their  Albany  trade,  and  probably 
with  their  other  trade.  With  one  accord,  therefore, 
they  conspired  to  ruin  the  trade  of  the  fifteen  advance 
agents  of  La  Salle  who  had  stopped  there  on  their 
way  to  the  tribes  furthest  west.  And  they  succeeded 
well.  It  was  a  mission  station,  but  it  was  also  a  trad- 
ing station,  and  the  dwelling  place  of  many  Indians. 
"Brandy  and  squaws  abounded,"  says  an  old  account. 
Aided  by  the  Indians  the  courcur-de-hois  persuaded 
several  of  the  fifteen  to  dispose  of  La  Salle's  goods 
in  ways  that  profited  him  not  a  sou.  Others  took  the 
goods  to  the  wilds  and  went  trading  on  their  own  ac- 
count— stole  the  goods  outright. 

La  Salle  was  anxious  to  return  to  Ft.  Frontenac, 
and  leave  Tonti  to  go  ahead  and  build  a  fort  among 
the  Illinois  Indians,  but  the  desertion  of  these  advance 
agents  compelled  him  to  remain  with  the  expedition 
to  reprieve  the  loss  their  treachery  had  brought  upon 
him.  So  he  sailed  over  to  Green  Bay,  where  he  found 
that  an  unnamed  remnant  of  his  fifteen  had  been  faith- 
ful, and  had  collected  a  "large  store  of  furs." 

Encouraged  by  this  good  fortune,  for  the  profit 
on  the  furs  would  partly  repair  his  losses.  La  Salle 
took  four  canoe  loads  of  supplies  from  the  Griffin,  and 
loading  her  with  furs  sent  her  back  to  Niagara,  while 

34 


Mississippi   Valley. 

he  went  forward  with  the  four  canoes  to  build  a  fort 
among  the  IlHnois  Indians.  The  Griffin  was  to  bring, 
for  a  return  cargo,  besides  ordinary  supplies,  the  rig- 
ging for  another  ship  which  La  Salle  purposed  build- 
ing for  use  on  the  Mississippi. 

On  September  i8,  1679,  the  Griffin  made  sail  for 
the  East.  La  Salle,  on  the  same  day,  paddled  away 
toward  the  head  of  Lake  Michigan,  and  after  a  jour- 
ney that  was  made  most  woeful  by  the  mutinous  con- 
duct of  his  men,  he  reached  the  St.  Joseph's  river. 

Because  La  Salle's  men  were  always  mutinous  it 
may  be  well  to  consider  here  the  reason  for  the  trouble. 
The  words  of  the  man,  uttered  when  his  friends  accused 
him  with  harshness,  tell  the  whole  story.     He  said : 

"The  facility  I  am  said  to  want  is  out  of  place  with 
this  sort  of  people,  who  are  libertines,  for  the  most 
part ;  and  to  indulge  them  means  to  tolerate  blasphemy, 
drunkenness,  lewdness  and  a  license  incompatible  with 
order.  The  debaucheries,  too  common  with  this  rabble, 
are  the  source  of  endless  delays  and  frequent  thieving; 
and  finally,  /  am  a  Christian,  and  do  not  want  to  bear 
the  burden  of  their  crimes/' 

A  chief  characteristic  of  this  man  is  therein  por- 
trayed.   He  was  sincere. 

On  reaching  the  St.  Joseph  this  much  harassed, 
most  unhappy  but  conscience-clear  La  Salle  found 
relief  in  the  work  of  building  a  fort  not  far  from  the 
modern  town  of  St.  Joseph,  Mich.,  near  the  mouth 
of  the  stream.  It  was  the  third  of  the  line  of  forts 
that  he  intended  to  stretch  to  the  mouth  of  the  IMissis- 
sippi.  Others  had  proclaimed  the  sovereignty  of 
France — had  written  a  title  in  the  air — but  La  Salle 

35 


A  History  of  the 

was  taking  actual  possession,  and  it  was  work  worth 
while. 

From  this  fort,  named  Miami,  La  Salle  went  up 
the  St.  Joseph  to  the  site  of  the  present  city  of  South 
Bend,  Indiana,  where  a  portage  led  him  to  the  Kan- 
kakee river.  It  is  to  be  noted  that  in  crossing  this 
portage  one  of  his  men  tried  to  shoot  La  Salle  in  the 
back,  but  was  stopped  in  time. 

On  January  5,  1680,  the  party  crossed  Peoria  Lake 
and  found  an  Indian  village  where  Peoria,  111.,  now 
stands,  and  with  these  people — members  of  the  Illinois 
tribe — La  Salle  easily  made  peace. 

And  yet,  though  hundreds  of  leagues  from  Que- 
bec, La  Salle  found  he  was  not  wholly  beyond  reach 
of  his  enemies  in  that  town.  While  he  negotiated  for 
permission  to  establish  a  trading  station  and  build  a 
ship,  an  emissary  of  the  enemy — a  chief  known  as 
Monso,  with  five  Miamis,  came  to  the  village  by  night, 
and  told  the  Illinois  that  La  Salle  was  a  spy  of  the 
dreaded  Iroquois.  And  still  greater  trouble  followed, 
when  six  of  his  men  deserted,  and  another  gave  him  a 
dose  of  poison. 

Nevertheless  La  Salle  persevered.  The  poison  did 
not  kill  him.  The  emissaries  of  his  enemies  fled,  and  he 
was  able  to  secure  the  confidence  of  the  Illinois.  Then 
he  went  to  a  point  below  the  camp  where  he  found  a 
low  hill  with  a  deep  ravine  on  each  side,  and  a  marsh, 
200  yards  wide,  between  it  and  the  river.  There  he 
built  a  stout  palisade  fort,  with  musket-proof  houses 
in  the  angles  for  his  men.  For  himself  and  Tonti  he 
provided  tents  in  the  open  center  of  the  fort. 

Two  facts  about  this  fort  are  remarkable.  He 
36 


Mississippi    Valley. 

named  it  Crevecoeur — Broken  Heart — and  he  lived  in 
a  tent  while  he  lodged  his  men  in  comfortable,  musket- 
proof  barracks.  Moreover  it  was  the  fourth  fort  in 
the  long  line  from  Montreal. 

And  it  is  not  to  be  forgotten  that  when  the  fort 
was  done  La  Salle  began  the  work  of  building  a  forty- 
ton  ship  for  navigating  the  Mississippi,  and  he  himself, 
to  animate  his  men,  took  hold  of  the  back-breaking 
whip-saw  to  cut  the  logs  into  planks.  It  was  character- 
istic of  the  man.  By  February  i,  1680,  the  hull  of  the 
new  ship  was  half  done. 

And  all  this  was  done  in  spite  of  the  fact  that 
nothing  had  been  heard  from  the  Griffin,  with  her 
precious  cargo  of  furs  to  be  carried  down,  and  her 
equally  precious  up-cargo  of  rigging  that  was  im- 
peratively needed  for  the  new  ship.  For  La  Salle  had 
determined  not  only  to  load  this  ship  with  skins  on 
the  Mississippi,  but  to  sail  in  her  to  France. 

And  not  only  did  La  Salle  keep  working  on;  he 
sent,  on  the  last  day  of  February,  1680,  an  expedition 
to  explore  the  Mississippi  from  the  mouth  of  the 
Illinois  up,  in  order  that  he  might  learn  its  resources, 
and  give  some  of  his  men  the  experience  necessary  to 
make  them  pilots. 

Michael  Accau  was  in  charge  of  this  expedition, 
and  he  was  assisted  by  one  Du  Gay,  but  the  priest 
Hennepin  was  sent  along  to  write  the  account,  and  he 
wrote  it  as  if  he  was  the  leader. 

Hennepin's  account  occupies  much  space  in  the 
histories  of  the  French  in  America.  But  the  expedition 
did  little  that  was  more  important  than  to  visit  and 
name  the  falls  of  St.  Anthony.     Hennepin  described 

37 


A  Hist  cry  of  the 

the  country,  and  the  Sioux  Indians  among  whom 
he  was  a  prisoner  for  a  time,  but  he  strove  to  obtain 
honors  that  he  had  not  earned  by  asserting  that  he 
went  to  the  mouth  of  the  Mississippi,  and  he  is  now 
known  to  have  been  a  most  "impudent  Har."  (Park- 
man.) 

Meantime  the  Griffin  with  her  cargo  of  rigging  for 
the  new  ship  did  not  come.  La  Salle  had  hoped  for 
her  coming  even  after  the  lake  froze  over,  but  she 
had  gone  where  he  nor  "the  crows"  would  ever  see 
her.  Her  fate  is  a  mystery.  Some  think  she  foundered 
in  a  gale,  others  that  Indians  captured  and  destroyed 
her  with  all  hands,  and  a  few  supposed  that  the  pilot 
ran  away  with  her  and  tried  to  carry  her  cargo  to 
the  English  at  Hudson's  Bay.  But  we  will  not  believe 
that  the  salt  sea  sailor  who  stood  firm  at  the  tiller 
openly  cursing  the  cowards  who  grovelled  in  abject 
terror — we  never  will  believe  that  such  a  man  was  a 
traitor.  The  Griffin  foundered,  with  the  pilot  stand- 
ing at  the  tiller,  looking  the  gale  in  the  eye  with  full 
confidence  that  the  God  of  the  gale  would  do  what 
was  right. 

Having  at  last  lost  all  hope  of  the  Griffin,  La  Salle 
started  (March  i,  1680),  with  five  companions  back 
to  get  another  outfit.  In  that  journey  wherein  the 
waters  were  covered  with  ice  "too  weak  to  bear  them 
and  too  strong  to  permit  them  to  break  a  way  with 
their  canoes;"  where  the  temperature  was  often  low 
enough  to  freeze  their  clothing  stiff  as  they  emerged 
from  a  ford ;  where  they  waded  day  after  day  through 
knee-deep  crusted  snow,  there  is  one  memorable  fact. 
La   Salle  led   the   way,   breaking  the   path   that   the 

38 


Mississippi   Valley. 

journey  might  be  easier  for  the  others.  He  would 
never  shirk  any  labor  helpful  to  his  purpose.  He  was, 
too,  a  man  of  such  marvelous  physical  powers  that  he 
reached  his  fort  on  the  Niagara  River  in  good  condi- 
tion, although  four  of  his  companions  had  been  obliged 
to  stop  by  the  way,  and  the  last  one  was  left  at  Niag- 
ara while  La  Salle  went  on. 

La  Salle  had  not  only  lost  the  Grififin;  a  consign- 
ment of  goods  worth  22,000  livres,  that  was  on  the  way 
to  him  from  France,  was  lost,  through  the  stranding  of 
the  ship.  Worse  yet,  two  coureiirs-de-hois  brought 
a  letter  from  Tonti  (whom  he  had  left  in  command  at 
Ft.  Crevecoeur),  saying  that  all  the  garrison  but  four 
or  five  men  had  mutinied,  destroyed  the  fort  and 
stores,  and  had  fled. 

Nevertheless  La  Salle  enlisted  twenty-five  new  men, 
obtained  another  outfit,  and  in  August,  1680,  started 
again.  Having  learned  that  several  of  the  mutineers 
were  coming  east  by  the  way  of  the  north  shore  of 
Lake  Erie,  and  that  they  had  determined  to  kill  him, 
if  they  could  meet  him,  La  Salle  was  careful  to 
meet  them.  Two  of  them  he  killed,  and  the  others  he 
sent  as  prisoners  to  Montreal. 

Without  further  incident  worth  mention  La  Salle 
arrived  at  the  point  on  the  Illinois  river  where  Utica 
now  stands;  but  instead  of  finding  a  plain  "swarming 
with  wild  human  life,"  he  found  charred  remains  of 
burned  cabins,  and  the  ground  between  strewn  with  the 
remains  of  human  bodies.  Flocks  of  ravens  and  buz- 
zards rose,  and  "wolves  in  multitude  fled,"  when  he 
landed. 

The  Iroquois  had  come,  (sent  by  Jesuit  priests,. 
39 


A  History  of  the 

Parkman  says),  and  failing  to  capture  as  many  of 
the  Illinois  as  they  hoped,  had  not  only  destroyed  the 
huts  and  caches,  but  had  ravaged  the  nearby  cemetery, 
to  set  up  the  dry  skulls  on  poles  and  scatter  the  other 
bones  to  the  winds. 

Tonti,  and  the  faithful  four  or  five  could  not  be 
found.  The  hull  of  the  new  ship  was  not  destroyed,  but 
all  the  iron  bolts  and  spikes  had  been  carried  away. 
So  La  Salle  turned  back  to  pass  the  winter  at  Ft. 
Miami,  on  Lake  Michigan. 

As  a  side  light  on  the  character  of  this  man  La 
Salle,  it  must  be  told  that  while  he  was  in  the  midst 
of  his  search  among  the  ghastly  relics  of  Iroquois 
barbarism  for  traces  of  his  missing  friend  and  com- 
panion, night  came  on  and  an  enormous  comet  was 
seen  flaming  in  the  sky.  The  pious  Increase  Mather 
of  Boston  on  seeing  it  "thought  it  fraught  with  terrific 
portent  to  the  nations  of  the  earth,"  and  nearly  all  men 
cowered  at  sight  of  it;  but  La  Salle  "coolly  noted  down 
the  phenomenon  as  an  object  of  scientific  curiosity." 

As  a  small  relief  to  his  ever  present  burden  of 
disappointment.  La  Salle  found  "allies  close  at  hand," 
during  the  winter.  The  Puritans  of  Massachusetts  had 
fought  out  King  Philip's  War,  and  a  band  of  Abenakis 
had  fled  for  refuge  to  the  ]\Iiamis  of  the  region  where 
Ft.  Miami  stood.  A  small  village  was  close  at  hand. 
The  New  England  refugees,  "with  one  voice  promised 
to  follow  La  Salle,  asking  no  recompense  but  to  call 
him  their  chief,  and  yield  to  him  the  love  and  admira- 
tion which  he  rarely  failed  to  command  from  the  hero- 
worshiping  race."  So  says  Parkman.  Few  passages 
of  higher  praise  can  be  found  in  the  story  of  La  Salle. 

40 


Mississippi    Valley. 

It  is  equally  honorable  to  the  refugees.    But  it  does  not 
read  so  well  in  the  story  of  the  Puritans. 

A  treaty  pledging  the  allegiance  of  the  Miamis  to 
the  French  interests  was  easily  made,  but  before  La 
Salle  could  start  again  for  the  ]\Iississippi  he  was 
obliged  to  return  still  once  more  to  the  St.  Lawrence 
"to  appease  his  creditors,"  and  "collect  his  scattered 
resources." 

"Any  one  else  would  have  thrown  up  his  hand  and 
abandoned  the  enterprise;  but,  far  from  this,  with  a 
firmness  and  constancy  that  never  had  its  equal,  I 
saw  him  more  resolved  than  ever  to  continue  his 
work,"  wrote  a  friend. 

La  Salle  left  Ft.  IMiami  at  the  end  of  May,  i68i,and 
in  due  time  reached  Montreal.  There,  in  spite  of  two 
years  of  disaster,  and  in  spite  of  debts  that  bore  in- 
terest at  forty  per  cent.,  he  once  more  obtained  the 
means  for  a  voyage,  How  it  was  possible  for  him  to 
do  so  under  the  circumstances  is  worth  considera- 
tion. The  explanation  is  given  in  a  memoir  written  by 
■La  Salle  in  1684,  and  now  to  be  found  in  vol.  ix.  pp. 
216-221,  "New  York  Colonial  Documents."  It  is  a 
statement  of  the  profits  made  in  the  trade  w^ith  the 
Indians.     He  says : 

To  drive  a  profitable  trade,  20,000  livres  must  be  expended  in 
France  in  the  purchase  of  the  following  assortments : 

Five  pipes  (tonneau)  of  brandy  at  the  rate  of  two  hundred 
livres  the  pipe;  five  pipes  (tonneau)  of  Wine  at  40  li.  the  pipe; 
2,000  ells  of  blue  poitou  Serge  at  2  li.  the  ell;  1,000  ells  of  Iro- 
quois blanketing  at  2  li.,  los.  the  ell;  1.800  white  shirts  (chemises) 
at  30  sous;  five  hundred  pairs  stockings  at  i  li.,  5s.  the  pair; 
2,000  pounds  of  small  kettles  at  i  liv.,  5s.  the  pound;  two 
hundred  pounds  of  large  black  glass  beads  at  los.  the  pound ; 
a  thousand  axes  for  the  trade  at  7  and  8  sous  the  pound ;  4,000 

41 


A  History  of  the 

pounds  of  powder  at  lO  and  12  sous  the  pound;  7,000  pounds  of 
ball  and  3,000  pounds  of  lead  at  120  liv.  the  thousand;  1,200 
guns  at  10  liv.  each;  2,400  Hattins  at  30  sous  the  dozen;  100  dozen 
steels  (Battcs-feu)  at  i  liv.  5s.  the  dozen;  50  dozen  of  large 
tinned  looking  glasses  (mirrors  fer-blanc)  at  I  liv.  los.  the 
dozen ;  50  pounds  of  vermilion  at  3s.  the  pound ;  250  ells  of 
scarlet  stuff  (ecarlatine)  at  4  liv.  the  ell;  and  400  pounds  of 
tobacco  at  17  sous. 

These  things,  carried  to  the  Indians,  v^^ill  produce  as  follovi^s : 

They  get  a  pint  of  brandy  for  a  beaver;  and  consequently, 
were  only  two  and  a  half  pipes  (tonneau)  of  it  sold,  allowing 
the  remainder  for  the  expense  of  the  fort  and  the  pay  of  the 
soldiers  and  sailors  to  whom  it  is  sold  at  one  hundred  sous  the 
quart,  the  ten  barrels,  retailing  to  the  Indians  at  the  rate  of 
one  hundred  quarts  to  the  barrel  and  of  four  beavers  per  quart, 
would  produce  four  thousand  beavers,  at  four  livres  a  piece,  or  an 
equivalent  in  other  peltry,  which  would  amount  to  sixteen  thous- 
and livres,  and  leaves,  consequently,  fifteen  thousand  livres  profit. 

The  wine  would  also  serve  to  pay  the  expenses  of  freight  and 
wages  at  the  rate  of  40  sous  the  quart. 

The  ell  of  Poitou  serge  sells  for  six  francs  to  the  Indians, 
and  that  of  Iroquois  blanketing  for  eight  livres,  and  consequently 
on  these  two  articles  there  would  be  a  profit  of  thirteen  thousand 
livres. 

The  shirts  sell  for  at  least  one  hundred  sous,  and  the  stock- 
ings for  eight  livres,  so  that  on  these  two  articles  there  is  more 
than  four  thousand  livres  gain. 

Kettles  sell  at  four  francs  the  pound,  and  consequently  there 
would  be  5,5C)0  livres  profit  on  that  article. 

Glass  beads  sell  at  eight  francs  the  pound,  and  axes  at  thirty 
sous  apiece,  so  that  these  two  articles  would  leave  a  profit 
of  two  thousand  livres. 

Powder  sells  at  40  sous  the  pound,  and  lead  at  twenty  sous, 
which  would  make  on  these  two  articles  over  thirteen  thousand 
livres. 

Guns  sell  at  24  livres  each,  and  therefore  would  produce  2,400 
liv.  more  than  their  cost. 

Tobacco  sells  at  eight  francs  per  pound,  it  would  therefore 
give  over  2,000  liv.  profit. 

On  the  scarlet  stuff  (ecarlatine),  one-half  would  be  gained, 
which  would  be  worth  one  thousand  livres. 

42 


Mississippi   Valley. 

The   profit   is   proportionably   greater   on   the   other   articles, 
such  as  knives,  vermilion,  steel,  etc. 

He  showed  conclusively  that  for  every  franc  inves- 
ted the  trade  would  yield  an  ecu,  or  about  sixty  cents 
net  profit  per  year,  or  say,  300  per  cent.  His  Canadian 
supporters  were  all  practical  traders — they  knew  that 
he  was  within  the  facts  in  this  statement  of  the  profits 
in  the  trade  with  the  Indians,  and  they,  of  course,  en- 
dorsed it  when  he  sent  it  to  France. 

Accordingly,  in  September,  1681,  he  was  found  in 
the  harbor  where  Toronto  now  stands,  making  the  por- 
tage to  Lake  Simcoe,  in  order  to  go  forward  via  Geor- 
gian Bay,  and  while  there  he  wrote : 

"I  hope  this  business  will  turn  out  well ;  for  I  have 
M.  de  Tonti,  who  is  full  of  zeal,  thirty  Frenchmen,  all 
good  men,  without  reckoning  such  as  I  cannot  trust; 
and  more  than  100  Indians,  some  of  them  Shawanese 
and  others  from  New  England,  all  of  whom  know  how 
to  use  guns." 

They  were  at  Ft.  Miami  in  December  and  on  the 
2ist  the  party  began  crossing  the  south  end  of  the  lake 
to  the  Chicago  river.  There,  where  many  things  are 
made  in  this  day,  they  made  sleds  on  which  they  placed 
their  canoes  and  baggage,  and  dragging  these,  they 
passed  over  the  route  of  the  great  modern  drainage 
canal,  and  followed  down  the  frozen  Illinois  till  they 
found  open  water  in  Lake  Peoria.  Here  they  embarked 
and  on  February  6,  1682,  floated  out  on  the  broad 
Mississippi. 

It  was  late  in  La  Salle's  day  of  life,  but  for  a  brief 
time  the  sun  broke  through  the  clouds.  For  a  few 
days  he  was  to  travel  with  the  tide  unbuffeted. 

43 


A  History  of  the 

On  February  24  a  landing  was  made  at  the  Third 
Chickasaw  Bluff,  (in  the  northwestern  part  of  Shelby 
county,  Tennessee),  and  the  party  encamped  to  hunt 
for  game.  Here  one  Pierre  Prudhomme  was  lost  in  the 
forest.  Signs  of  Indians  had  been  seen  in  the  vicinity, 
and  because  of  this  fact  La  Salle  with  part  of  his  crew 
built  a  wooden  fort  while  the  others  hunted  for  the  lost 
man.  And  w^hen  he  was  found  at  last,  his  name  was 
given  to  the  fort  to  commemorate  the  successful  result 
of  the  search.  This  was  the  fifth  fort  in  the  line  which 
La  Salle  was  building  between  Montreal  and  the  mouth 
of  the  Mississippi. 

Again  La  Salle  embarked  "and  with  every  stage 
of  his  adventurous  progress  the  mystery  of  this  vast 
new  world  was  more  and  more  unveiled."  He  met  the 
Arkansas  and  the  Natchez  Lidians,  and  took  possession 
of  their  lands  with  the  usual  ceremonies,  while  the 
Indians  looked  on  with  pleasure  because  they  did  not 
comprehend  the  meaning  of  the  ceremonies. 

Then  on  April  6,  1682,  they  reached  the  place  where 
the  mighty  stream  divided  itself  into  three  channels 
and  flowed  away  into  the  Gulf  of  Mexico. 

For  three  days  the  party  cruised  about  the  verge  of 
the  Gulf  and  then  going  to  a  low  dry  hillock,  on  the 
bank  of  the  river,  they  erected  a  wooden  column,  on 
which  they  carved  the  arms  of  France,  and  these  words : 

Louis  Ic  Grand,  Rcy  dc  France  et  dc  Ncvarre,  Regne: 
Le  Ncuvicme  Avril,  1682. 

Then  in  the  usual  form  the  whole  magnificent  basin 
of  the  Great  River  was  claimed  for  the  crown  of  "Louis 
le  Grand,"  and  named  Louisiana  in  his  honor. 

44 


.;^-^-;gONVa93- 


FKANQUKLIN  S    MAP,    It 


Mississippi   Valley. 

La  Salle  had  reached  the  river's  mouth.  He  was  the 
first  to  explore  the  land  there,  and  the  first  to  claim  the 
whole  watershed  of  the  great  river.  He  had  also  built 
a  fort  on  the  bank  of  the  river,  and  another  fort  on 
one  of  the  tributaries.  By  these  things  done  he  had  filed 
in  the  name  of  France,  a  good  preliminary  claim  on 
the  whole  magnificent  valley.  From  the  oil  spring  in 
Alleghany  County,  New  York,  to  the  dividing  of  the 
waters  of  Two  Oceans  Creek  in  Wyoming;  from  the 
Wisconsin  lakes  where  the  honking  wild  goose  nested 
and  the  Sioux  ranged  free,  to  the  tide  swept  marshes  of 
the  Gulf  of  IMexico,  Louis  the  XIV  now  reigned  by 
virtue  of  the  work  of  Rene-Robert  Cavalier,  Sieur  de 
la  Salle. 

Fortunately  for  American  civilization  there  was 
no  other  Frenchman  in  America  equal  to  this  one,  and 
not  from  all  France,  was  his  equal  to  follow  him  to 
America. 

Few  words  are  needed  to  tell  the  remainder  of  the 
story  of  La  Salle.  He  returned  up  the  river,  and  at 
Starved  Rock,  on  the  Illinois,  near  the  modern  village 
of  Utica,  built  another  fort  which  he  called  St.  Louis. 
It  was  the  sixth  of  his  chain.  Here  he  gathered  a  colo- 
ny of  Indians  of  various  tribes  and  granted  lands  to  his 
followers,  as  he  had  a  legal  right  to  do.  But  in  the 
meantime  the  enemies  of  the  enterprise  had  succeeded 
in  having  Frontenac  recalled.  A  Governor,  La  Barre, 
was  appointed  who  antagonized  La  Salle  as  much  as 
he  could.  In  desperation  La  Salle  left  his  colony  and 
went  to  France. 

There  "he  found  himself  famous.  He,  the  poor 
boy,  the  ignoble  by  birth,  was  presented  to  Louis  XIV 

45 


A  History  of  the 

amid  all  the  splendors  of  the  court.  That  Jupiter  among 
the  Kings  of  the  earth  had  a  smile  to  bestow  upon 
the  humble  subject  who  came  to  deposit  at  the  foot  of 
the  throne  the  title  deeds  of  such  broad  domains." 

An  expedition  of  four  ships  was  fitted  out  to  make 
a  permanent  settlement  near  the  mouth  of  the  Missis- 
sippi. There  were  material  for  forts,  and  men  for  gar- 
risons; materials  for  plantations  and  men  to  work 
them ;  a  marquis  for  social  elegance  and  girls  to  marry 
the  young  men — very  attractive  girls,  too,  it  would 
seem,  for  the  marquis  wanted  to  marry  one  of  them, 
later  on,  in  spite  of  her  ignoble  birth. 

The  ambition  of  La  Salle — the  one  man  who  stands 
forever  conspicuous  in  the  New  France  of  his  day — 
seemed  realized. 

•  Nevertheless  the  fates  had  in  his  hour  of  triumph, 
tangled  the  lines  of  his  life.  It  was  only  after  much 
bickering  that  the  expedition  sailed.  In  the  West  Indies 
La  Salle  was  stricken  with  fever,  one  of  his  ships  was 
captured  by  the  Spanish  and  his  men  were  debauched 
by  the  buccaneer  hordes.  Worse  yet,  when  he  recovered 
and  sailed  on,  the  squadron  overstood  the  mouth  of 
the  Mississippi,  and  landed  in  a  bay — supposed  to  be 
Matagorda — on  the  coast  of  Texas. 

La  Salle  was  now,  at  last,  fatally  enmeshed.  A 
store  ship  was  stranded  and  lost  because  her  captain 
persisted  in  coming  into  the  harbor  under  sail  contrary 
to  orders.  There  are  good  reasons  for  supposing  he 
deliberately  wrecked  her.  Another  small  store  ship 
was  brought  into  the  harbor,  but  she,  too,  was  lost.  The 
last  one,  a  frigate,  sailed  away  to  seek  a  harbor  with 
sufficient  depth  of  water  in  which  some  needed  supplies, 

46 


Mississippi   Valley. 

then  stowed  down  under  all,  might  be  broken  out,  and 
brought  back  to  La  Salle,  but  she  was  unable  to  re- 
turn. 

As  theretofore,  in  the  face  of  every  discourage- 
ment. La  Salle  continued  to  work.  He  built  his  fort 
and  planned  his  settlement.  He  went  exploring  to  find 
at  what  point  the  great  river  entered  the  bay  and 
learned  that  the  river  was  nowhere  in  the  region.  His 
people  were  as  a  whole  the  scum  of  Paris.  Many  died 
and  the  living  became  mutinous.  Their  clothes  wore 
out  and  were  replaced  by  others  made  of  the  sails  of 
the  last  ship  that  was  wrecked. 

Finally  at  the  end  of  1686  it  was  seen  that  a  jour- 
ney to  France  for  another  outfit  must  be  made,  else  all 
would  die  there  in  the  wilderness,  and  La  Salle  de- 
termined to  go  by  the  way  of  Quebec.  On  January  7, 
1687,  he  left  his  fort  with  sixteen  white  men  and  two 
Indians,  hoping  to  find  his  way  to  the  Mississippi,  and 
then  by  way  of  the  Illinois,  where  Tonti  was  yet  in 
command,  to  the  St.  Lawrence,  He  left  behind  twen- 
ty people  of  whom  seven  were  girls  who  had  come  hop- 
ing to  find  husbands  and  homes  in  the  New  World. 

The  company  on  leaving  France  had  comprised 
roo  soldiers,  "thirty  volunteers  including  gentlemen," 
"several  families  as  well  as  a  number  of  girls,"  and  six 
priests.  Only  thirty-seven,  all  told,  were  now  left,  and 
seventeen  of  these,  in  suits  made  of  skins  and  old  sails, 
were  starting  on  the  long  journey  to  Quebec,  though 
they  did  not  know  anything  about  the  country  between 
them  and  the  IMississippi,  and  had  only  an  indefinite 
idea  of  the  direction. 

Until  the  month  of  ]\Iarch  they  struggled  on  their 
47 


A  History  of  the 

way  and  finally  reached  the  Trinity  river.  A  mutinous 
spirit  had  grown  steadily,  and  on  March  15,  while  en- 
camped on  the  Trinity,  some  of  the  men  quarreled  over 
marrow  bones  and  other  choice  bits  of  two  buffaloes 
killed  by  a  small  hunting  party  that  was  camped  at 
some  distance  from  the  main  body.  It  was  a  quarrel, 
naturally,  between  men  who  were  friendly  to  the  leader 
and  those  who  were  not,  and  on  the  night  of  the  17th 
of  March  the  friends  of  La  Salle,  (three  in  number,  in- 
cluding Nika,  an  Indian,)  were  murdered  while  they 
slept. 

This  party  should  have  returned  to  the  main  camp 
on  the  night  of  the  17th,  and  their  failure  to  do  so 
caused  La  Salle  no  little  uneasiness  during  the  next 
day.  To  his  Lieutenant,  Joutel,  a  fellow  townsman, 
and  the  historian  of  the  expedition,  La  Salle  showed  a 
marked  "presentiment  of  what  was  to  take  place,"  as 
Joutel  writes.  "He  asked  me  if  I  had  .heard  of  any 
machinations  against  them,  or  had  noticed  any  bad 
design." 

On  the  morning  of  March  19,  1687,  La  Salle  started 
to  find  the  wandering  hunters.  He  took  with  him  Fath- 
er Anastase  Douay  and  an  Indian.  On  the  way  "he 
spoke  to  me  of  nothing  but  matters  of  piety,  grace  and 
predestination ;  enlarging  on  the  debt  he  owed  to  God, 
who  had  saved  him  from  so  many  perils  during  more 
than  twenty  years  of  travel  in  America.  Suddenly  I 
saw  him  overwhelmed  with  a  profound  sadness,  for 
which  he  himself  could  not  account.  He  was  so  much 
moved  that  I  scarcely  knew  him,"  wrote  the  priest. 

But  that  feeling  passed  wholly  away  when  he  ar- 
rived near  the  camp  of  the  mutineers.     One  of  them 

48 


Mississippi   Valley. 

had  been  placed  in  view  as  a  decoy  while  two  hid  in  the 
grass.  The  decoy  replied  "with  a  tone  of  studied  in- 
solence" when  La  Salle  hailed  him. 

Full  of  anger  La  Salle  started  forward  to  punish 
the  scoundrel,  but  when  he  was  passing  the  ambushed 
conspirators  they  fired,  and  La  Salle  fell  dead,  shot 
through  the  brain. 

No  praise  of  La  Salle  is  so  sincere  and  emphatic 
as  that  of  his  enemies,  unwitting  though  it  has  been 
always.  The  traders  who  from  the  safe  shadows  of 
the  St.  Lawrence  forts  jeered  him;  the  Jesuits  who 
sent  the  Iroquois  to  destroy  the  Illinois  Indians  about 
Fort  Crevecoeur ;  the  assassins  who  shot  him  from  am- 
bush— all  these  stand  forth  in  history  and  say : 

"There  was  a  man." 

For  not  one  of  them,  nor  all  combined,  ever  dared 
to  oppose  him,  face  to  face,  man  fashion. 

Six  of  La  Salle'spartyofseventeen eventually  reach- 
ed Quebec,  whence  five  sailed  to  France.  Two  of  the 
three  who  ambushed  La  Salle  were  shot  by  their  com- 
panions in  a  quarrel  over  the  trade  goods  La  Salle  had 
carried,  the  third  lived  to  reach  the  Spaniards  in  Mex- 
ico. The  remainder  of  the  party  were  nearly  all  killed 
by  the  Indians,  but  "Gravier's  Voyage"  as  found  in 
the  Jesuit  "Relations"  (vol.  Ixv)  says  that  two  of 
them  were  delivered  to  the  Spaniards  and  were  after- 
ward able  to  reach  "fort  Bilocchi."  The  fort  built  by 
La  Salle  at  IMatagorda  Bay  was  raided  by  the  Indians, 
and  fourteen  out  of  the  twenty  that  remained  in  it  were 
killed.  Two  of  these  who  were  spared  were  the  child- 
ren of  a  man  named  Talon,  and  these  eventually 
reached  France. 

49 


A  History  of  the 

In  all  fourteen  of  La  Salle's  party  are  accounted 
for  in  the  settlements  of  the  French,  and  of  these  seven 
returned  to  France,  All  the  others  died  on  the  way  or 
perished  in  the  wilderness. 


50 


JEAN    BAI'TISIE    Lli    MljV.NK,     SIKUR    DK    BIENVILLE. 
Governor  of  Louisiana,  1718. 


IV 


FROM  LA  SALLE  TO  NEW  ORLEANS. 

Work  of  a  Backwoods  Naval  Officer — Tales  of  a  Blue 
Capote,  a  Piece  of  Speaking  Bark  and  a  Red  Tree 
Trunk — When  the  Frown  of  the  King's  Favorite 
Sent  a  Prime  Minister  Waltzing  Into  Outer  Dark- 
ness— The  Notable  Journeys  of  Henri  de  Tonti — A 
Story  of  Misplaced  Love — Starving,  Though  Lo- 
cated on  the  Richest  Land  in  the  World — The  Found- 
ing of  New  Orleans. 


In  the  journal  of  the  Jesuits  for  October  26,  1645, 
is  this  paragraph : 

An  order  was  given  at  the  same  time  to  Monsieur  de  Chesne, 
uncle  of  Charles  le  Moyne,  for  20  ecus,  which  we  were  giving 
his  nephew  for  four  years'  service  rendered  among  the  Hurons. 
He  was  clothed  and  decently  supplied  with  linen,  and  was  sent 
to  Three  Rivers  as  soldier  and  interpreter. 


A  History  of  the 

This  Charles  le  Moyne,  then  twenty-one  years  old, 
is  to  be  remembered  here,  because  he  was  afterwards 
the  father  of  fourteen  children,  "most  of  whom  achieved 
distinction  in  military  or  civil  affairs,"  and  among 
whom  were  Iberville  and  Bienville,  who  gave  to  France 
the  undisputed  de  facto  possession  of  the  lower  end  of 
the  vast  territory  of  the  Mississippi  Valley,  to  which 
the  work  of  La  Salle  had  given  her  the  legal  right  of 
pre-emption.  If  Bienville  is  to  be  regarded  as  "the 
father  of  New  Orleans,"  Charles  le  Moyne  was  its 
grandfather. 

La  Salle's  plans  for  settling  the  lower  end  of  the 
Louisiana  territory  did  not  die  with  him.  Tonti,  who 
remained  in  command  at  the  fort  on  Starved  Rock,  on 
the  Illinois,  (a  "privileged  character,"  he,  and  "re- 
spected by  Indians  and  whites"),  applied  in  1694,  for 
a  commission  to  carry  on  the  work,  and  failed  to  get 
it.  Two  other  officers  made  further  application  in 
1697  without  success,  but  in  1698,  when  Le  Moyne 
dTberville  offered  to  plant  a  colony  in  Louisiana,  his 
plans  were  accepted. 

For  this  youth  from  the  backwoods  of  Canada  had 
become  a  noted  man.  He  had  entered  the  French  navy, 
and  by  good  work,  had  risen,  until  at  the  end  of  the 
Seventeenth  Century  he  ranked  as  a  post  captain. 
While  in  command  of  the  frigate  Pelican,  of  but 
forty-four  cannon,  he  met  in  Hudson's  Bay  the  British 
frigate  Hampshire,  of  fifty-two  guns,  the  Daring,  of 
thirty-six  guns  and  the  Hudson's  Bay  of  thirty-two — 
a  fleet  rated  at  120  guns  to  his  forty-four.  In  spite  of 
the  odds,  this  man,  who  had  been  trained  in  the  back- 
woods of  North  America,  cleared  for  action,  ranged  up 

52 


'il 


Mississippi  Valley. 

alongside  the  Hampshire  and  sank  her.  Then  he  cap- 
tured the  Hudson's  Bay,  and  drove  the  Daring  into 
a  flight  that  behed  her  name. 

The  record  says  the  Hampshire  sank  because  of  the 
shot  she  received  between  wind  and  water.  Iber- 
ville had  taught  his  gunners  how  to  aim  their  guns, 
and  history  shows  that  naval  officers  who  have  done 
that  have  achieved,  as  well  as  earned,  fame  whenever 
opportunity  came  to  them ;  it  shows  further  that,  with 
rare  exception,  only  naval  officers  with  backwoods  ex- 
perience have  fully  understood  the  value  of  accuracy 
of  aim. 

And  yet  the  success  of  Iberville  in  obtaining  a 
Louisiana  commission  but  deepens  the  gloom  about  the 
heroic  figure  of  La  Salle.  For  the  Le  Moyne  family 
had  been  among  the  most  powerful  of  his  opponents. 
While  La  Salle's  bones  lay  scattered  on  the  Texan 
plain,  one  of  his  persistent  enemies  was  to  reap  where 
he  had,  by  infinite  labor  and  with  life  itself,  prepared 
the  ground  and  sowed  the  seed. 

Iberville,  in  his  Louisiana  work,  had  international 
conditions  in  his  favor.  Spain  had  reached  out  to  settle 
the  Gulf  coast,  and  a  company  had  been  formed  in 
London  to  establish  a  colony  on  the  Mississippi.  A 
rumor  prevailed  that  a  company  of  Pennsylvanians 
had  settled  on  the  Wabash.  The  French  Government 
cared  very  little  about  the  territory  for  itself,  but  to 
prevent  its  becoming  English  territory  Iberville  was 
sent  to  colonize  it.  French  jealousy  of  the  English 
has  had  much  influence  on  American  affairs. 

With  the  war  ships  Badine  and  Marin,  and  a  num- 
ber   of    transports,    Iberville    sailed    from    Brest    on 

53 


A  History  of  the 

October  24,  1698.  On  December  4  he  arrived  at  Cape 
Francois,  San  Domingo.  There  he  added  some  buc- 
caneers to  his  crew,  (the  notable  career  of  the  buc- 
caneers was  then  just  ending),  and  he  was  joined  by 
the  fifty-gun  frigate  Francois. 

After  saiHng  thence  along  the  south  side  of  Cuba 
and  north  past  Cape  San  Antonio,  the  coast  of  Florida 
was  seen  on  January  2;^,  and  on  the  26th  they  dis- 
covered two  Spanish  ships  in  Pensacola  harbor.  The 
Spanish  "had  not  been  settled  [there]  for  more  than 
three  weeks,"  according  to  Gravier's  Voyage.  But  the 
first  settlement  they  made  there  was  in  1696.  Leaving 
the  Spaniards  unmolested  Iberville  continued  his  west- 
ward course  until,  on  February  10,  he  furled  sail  in 
what  is  now  the  well  known  road  behind  Ship  Island ; 
and  they  gave  the  Island  its  name  because  it  afforded 
a  safe  anchorage. 

From  this  place  Iberville  and  his  men  went  explor- 
ing the  region  in  small  boats.  They  found  one  island 
well  strewn  with  human  bones  and  named  it  Massacre 
Island,  but  afterwards  changed  the  name  to  Dauphin. 
They  found  another  island  thickly  inhabited  by  rac- 
coons and  named  it  Cat  Island. 

On  March  2  Iberville's  boats  rowed  into  a  strong 
current  of  fresh  muddy  water  sweeping  across  the 
salt  sea  from  among  the  marshes.  Up  this  current 
the  explorers  hastened  as  well  as  they  could,  eventually 
finding  banks  more  or  less  firm,  and  finally  some  In- 
dians, among  whom  was  one  who  had  a  blue  hooded 
cloak.  He  said  a  white  man  had  given  it  to  him. 
At  a  village  of  200  cabins  built  around  a  temple,  they 
found  a  glass  bottle  left  by  the  man  who  had  owned 

54 


Mississippi   Valley. 

the  blue  capote.  They  saw  also  a  red  tree  trunk  on 
which  the  Indians  had  made  rude  pictures  of  a  bear 
and  a  fish.  This  red  tree  marked  the  boundary  between 
two  tribes,  and  Baton  Rouge,  (i.  e.,  a  red  staff  or 
stake  used  by  surveyors)  is  the  name  of  the  city  stand- 
ing where  the  tree  stood. 

On  returning  down  the  river  Iberville  sent  his 
younger  brother  Bienville  back  by  the  main  stream,  and 
the  young  man  found  an  Indian  who  had  a  piece  of 
"speaking  bark."  A  most  wonderful  medicine  the  In- 
dian thought  it,  but  Bienville  bought  it  for  a  hatchet. 
It  was  a  letter  written  by  Henri  de  Tonti  to  La  Salle. 

Thirteen  years  before  while  in  charge  of  fort  St. 
Louis,  on  the  Illinois,  Tonti  had  heard  that  La  Salle 
had  sailed  from  France  to  form  a  settlement  at  the 
mouth  of  the  Mississippi.  As  soon  as  possible  there- 
after he  started  to  visit  his  friend — to  travel  in  a  canoe 
from  Utica,  Illinois,  to  the  Gulf  of  Mexico,  in  spite 
of  the  physical  hardships  and  the  hostihties  of  Indians 
along  the  route — that  he  might  make  a  friendly  call 
on  an  old  comrade.  He  reached  the  Gulf  while  La 
Salle  was  struggling  in  the  Fates'  mesh  on  the  plains 
of  Texas,  but  there  was  no  way  for  Tonti  to  learn 
where  La  Salle  was,  and  after  a  weary  wait,  he  gave 
the  chief  of  a  near-by  Indian  village  some  presents, 
(among  the  rest  the  blue  capote),  and  a  letter  to  be 
delivered  to  La  Salle  whenever  the  expedition  should 
arrive.  It  is  a  picture  of  early  life  in  the  great  valley 
that  is  worth  preserving. 

From  the  Mississippi,  Iberville  himself  returned  by 
the  way  of  Bayou  Manchac  and  Maurepas  and  Pont- 
chartrain,  naming  these  lakes  as  he  came.     Both  lakes 

55 


A  History  of  the 

were  named  for  families  that  produced  prime  ministers 
of  France.  Some  Cyclopedias  omit  the  name  of  Pont- 
chartrain  but  all  contain  that  of  Maurepas.  He  was  a 
"nimble  old  man,  who  for  all  emergencies  has  his  light 
jest;  and  even  in  the  worst  confusion  will  emerge, 
cork-like,  unsunk,"  until  "fixed  in  the  frost  of  death," 
in  1781.  His  name  is  "fixed"  in  the  cyclopedias  for  a 
number  of  reasons.  He  was  not  only  a  prime  minister 
of  France,  but  a  most  capable  writer  of  literature  of 
the  class  now  excluded  from  the  mails.  He  wrote  a 
description  of  Madam  Pompadour  in  this  vein,  and  she 
was  so  much  offended  that  the  king,  Louis  XV.,  dis- 
missed him  from  of^ce.  Recalling  the  conditions  pre- 
vailing in  the  court  of  old  France  helps  toward  a  com- 
prehension of  the  history  of  New  France;  to  see  "a 
lightly-jesting,  lightly-gyrating  ]\I.  de  Maurepas"  sent 
waltzing  into  outer  darkness  by  the  frown  of  the  king's 
favorite  explains  much — as  shall  appear  in  more  detail 
further  on.  This  is  not  to  say  that  the  lake  was  named 
for  the  "nimble  old"  Maurepas.  It  was  named  for 
his   family. 

It  is  well  to  note  here  that  Iberville's  instructions 
commanded  him  "to  seek  out  diligently  the  best  places 
for  establishing  pearl  fisheries."  He  was  also  to  "look 
for  mines,"  the  finding  of  which  would  be  "the  great 
business."  (Parkman) 

Iberville  finally  settled  where  Biloxi  now  stands, 
choosing  that  location  partly  because  of  the  lovely  little 
bay,  and  partly  because  the  Biloxi  Indians  (a  stray 
fragment  of  the  great  Sioux  family),  from  whom  the 
bay  was  named,  were  a  very  friendly  people.  "On  the 
east  side,  at  the  mouth  of  the  bay,  there  is  a  slight  swell- 

56 


JEANNE    ANTOINETTE    I'OIbSON,    MARQUISE    DE    POMPADOUR. 


Mississippi    Valley. 

ing  of  the  shore,  about  four  acres  square,  sloping  gent- 
ly to  the  woods  in  the  background,  and  on  the  right 
and  left  of  which,  two  deep  ravines  run  into  the  bay." 
Here,  in  April,  1699,  the  French  built  a  palisaded  fort 
and  log  houses.  Sieur  de  Sauville,  a  brother  of  Iber- 
ville, was  placed  in  command,  with  another  brother, 
Bienville,  then  a  youth  of  18,  as  second,  after  which 
Iberville  sailed  for  France  to  get  further  supplies  and 
more  colonists. 

Bienville  was  then  once  more  sent  exploring  the  re- 
gion, and  he  learned  soon  that  the  English  from  the 
Atlantic  coast  were  in  constant  communication  with 
the  Chickasaw  Indians,  the  most  aggressive  tribe  of  the 
region.  The  Chickasaws  even  came  to  Lake  Pont- 
chartrain,  soon  after  the  French  settled  at  Biloxi,  and 
with  the  aid  of  Englishmen  fought  a  battle  with  other 
Indians  there.  It  was  an  ominous  piece  of  news,  ex- 
ceedingly ominous  if  considered  in  connection  with  the 
English  goods  that  Joliet  had  found  among  the  Indians 
on  the  banks  of  the  Mississippi  during  his  exploration. 
The  tide  of  English  enterprise  had  risen  so  high  as  to 
find  the  passes  through  and  around  the  Alleghany 
range  of  mountains. 

A  little  later  Bienville  saw  some  of  the  English. 
While  floating  around  the  sharp  bend  of  the  IMississippi 
where  it  passes  near  to  and  just  west  of  Lake  Borgne 
he  met  an  English  ship  commanded  by  one  Louis  Bank, 
(or  Bar,  as  Gayarre  writes  it).  Bank  said  he  was 
bringing  a  company  of  Englishmen  and  French  Hu- 
guenots to  settle  on  the  Mississippi,  and  that  another 
detachment  of  the  settlers  was  coming  overland  from 
the  sea  under  the  guidance  of  the  Chickasaws.     Bien- 

57 


A   History   of  i]:c 

ville  protested.  He  said  that  this  river  valley  had  been 
settled  by  the  French  for  many  years,  and  that  a  large 
force  was  near  at  hand.  In  proof  of  his  assertion  he 
called  attention  to  the  fact  that  he  was  there  roaming- 
about  in  a  row  boat.     The  Englishman  blustered  a  lit- 


Moll's  Map  of  1710. 

tie  but  turned  back  to  the  Gulf;  and  that  bend  in  the 
river  has  been  known  as  the  English  Turn  ever  since. 

When,  in  the  following  December,  Iberville  re- 
turned and  heartl  of  this  incident  he  immediately  de- 
termined to  build  a  fort  on  the  river  bank.  Leaving 
Biloxi  on  this  errand  on  January  8,  1700,  he  began 
work  on  the  fort  at  a  spot  about  18  miles  below  the 

58 


Mississippi   Valley. 

present  site  of  New  Orleans — perhaps  on  the  Scarsdale 
plantation.     He  named  the  fort  La  Boulaye. 

While  engaged  in  this  work  Henri  de  Tonti  came 
paddhng  down  the  river.  He  was  still  in  command 
on  the  Illinois,  where  he  held  the  privilege  of  sending 
two  canoe  loads  of  beaver  a  year  to  Montreal;  but  he 
thought  he  might  find  a  better  market  by  way  of  the 
mouth  of  the  Great  River,  as  La  Salle  had  hoped  to  do. 
He  had  come  down  to  see  about  the  matter.  A  canoe 
journey  of  more  than  1,500  miles  through  the  wilder- 
ness, in  the  interest  of  trade,  was  no  more  to  him  than 
a  ten-mile  trolley  ride  is  to  a  modern  commercial  trav- 
eller. 

Iberville  and  Bienville  were  so  glad  to  meet  their 
old  friend  that  when  he  started  home,  three  days  later, 
they  went  along  as  far  as  the  village  of  Natchez  In- 
dians, standing  where  Natchez,  Mississippi,  is  found 
now.  As  it  happened  a  thunder  storm  was  raging, 
when  they  arrived,  and  the  lighting  had  just  set  fire  to 
the  temple  wherein  these  Indians  worshipped  the  sun. 
The  Indians  were  insane  with  fear  and  excitement,  for 
they  believed  the  disaster  was  due  to  the  anger  of  their 
god,  and  to  appease  him,  five  infants  were  thrown  alive 
into  the  flames,  at  the  commands  of  the  medicine  men. 
The  incident  seems  to  have  given  the  Frenchmen  a 
strong  prejudice  against  these  Indians. 

In  the  year  of  1700  a  notable  voyage  was 
made  on  the  Mississippi  by  one  La  Sueur,  a  man 
who  had  led  an  adventurous  life  on  the  great 
lakes,  and  had  come  to  Louisiana  with  Iberville 
in  December,  1699.  With  a  felucca,  a  small  two- 
masted     coaster,     rigged     with     lateen     sails,     and 

59 


A  History  of  the 

a  crew  of  25  men,  he  made  his  way  up  to 
Lake  Pepin.  There  he  built  a  fort,  killed  400  buffaloes, 
lived  on  the  flesh  all  winter,  drove  a  good  fur  trade 
with  the  Indians,  and  carried  back  a  cargo  of  earth 
stained  blue  with  silicate  of  iron,  thinking  it  a  valuable 
ore.  It  was  this  blue  earth  that  gave  a  name  to  Blue 
Earth  River.  And  the  Sueur's  felucca  was  the  first 
decked  and  ship-built  vessel  to  make  a  voyage  on  the 
Mississippi. 

In  1 701  Iberville  moved  the  larger  part  of  his  col- 
ony to  Mobile  Bay  (named  from  a  clan  of  Indians), 
and  placed  Bienville  in  command  of  the  colony,  Sau- 
ville  having  died  meantime.  Settlements  had  already 
been  made  on  Dauphine  and  Ship  Islands.  The  Span- 
ish at  Pensacola  protested  that  Florida  extended  to 
Mexico,  but  the  matter  was  referred  home  to  the  two 
Governments,  and  the  Spanish  King  yielded  the  land 
to  his  uncle,  Louis  XIV. 

As  the  King's  colony  these  settlements  existed  until 
1 712.  For  about  two-thirds  of  this  time  Bienville  was 
Governor  and  was  second  in  command  during  the  re- 
mainder of  the  time.  A  few  extracts  from  the  records 
will  sufficiently  portray  the  ways  of  life  in  those  days. 

In  1705  the  arrival  of  a  party  of  seventeen  Canadi- 
ans is  mentioned  in  the  records  as  a  matter  of  import- 
ance because  they  "came  with  the  intention  of  making 
a  permanent  settlement,  and  had  provided  themselves 
with  all  the  implements  of  husbandry."  All  the  other 
settlers  had  come  hoping  to  get  rich  quickly  and  then 
return  to  France.  It  is  reasonable  to  infer  that  the 
Canadians  raised  considerable  crops  of  corn,  for  In  1706 
one  of  Bienville's  despatches  says: 

60 


Mississippi   Valley. 

"The  males  in  the  colony  begin  through  habit  to  be 
reconciled  to  corn  as  an  article  of  nourishment;  but 
the  females,  who  are  mostly  Parisians,  have  for  this 
kind  of  food  a  dogged  aversion.  Hence  they  inveigh 
bitterly  against  his  Grace,  the  Bishop  of  Quebec,  who, 
they  say,  has  enticed  them  away  from  home  under  the 
pretext  of  sending  them  to  enjoy  the  milk  and  honey 
of  the  land  of  promise." 

The  usual  cargo  of  a  ship  from  France  in  this  per- 
iod, contained  (to  quote  from  the  manifest  of  one  of 
them),  "goods,  provisions,  ammunition;  Flesh-pots  of 
France,  rivalling,  to  a  certainty,  those  of  Egypt ;  spark- 
ling wines  to  cheer  the  cup ;  twenty-three  girls  to  glad- 
den the  heart;  five  priests  to  minister  to  the  soul  and 
to  bless  holy  alliances;  two  sisters  of  charity  to  attend 
on  the  sick,  and  seventy-five  soldiers  for  protection 
against  the  inroads  of  the  Indians.  This  was  some- 
thing to  be  thankful  for."     (Gayarre). 

As  in  Canada  the  Louisiana  colony  was  governed 
by  an  Intendant  as  well  as  a  Governor,  the  Intendant's 
chief  business  being  to  spy  on  the  deeds  of  the  Govern- 
or. In  a  letter  dated  December  7,  1706,  Intendant 
Nicolas  de  La  Salle  says  that  the  Le  Moyne  brothers 
were  guilty  of  "every  sort  of  malfeasances  and  dilapi- 
dations. They  are  rogues  who  pilfer  away  his  majes- 
ty's goods  and  effects." 

A  partisan  of  Bienville  writes  that  among  men 
"none  was  better  calculated  than  La  Salle  to  personate 
the  toad.  His  mission  was  to  secrete  venom.  Fat, 
short,  sleek,  with  bloated  features  and  oily  skin.  ♦  *  * 
Puffed  up  in  conceit,  an  eternal  smile  of  contentment 
was  stereotyped  on  the  gross  texture  of  his  lips." 

61 


A  History  of  the 

The  Curate  de  la  Vente,  the  leader  of  the  priests, 
was  opposed  to  Bienville,  and  Bienville  wrote  that  La 
Vente  "has  tried  to  stir  up  everybody  against  me  by  his 
calumnies,  and  who,  in  the  meantime,  does  not  blush 
to  keep  an  open  shop,  where  his  mode  of  trafficking 
shows  that  he  is  a  shrewd  compound  of  the  Arab  and 
the  Jew." 

Even  one  of  Bienville's  own  family  helped  to  stir 
up  strife.  A  nephew.  Major  Boisbriant,  fell  in  love 
with  the  lady  who  was  in  charge  of  the  girls  brought 
out,  at  the  King's  charge,  to  marry  colonists.  She  re- 
turned his  passion,  but  Bienville  refused  to  allow  them 
to  marry,  on  the  ground  that  the  lady  was  of  a  lower 
social  rank.  Thereupon  the  lady  wrote  the  story  of 
her  woes  to  the  Colonial  Secretary,  and  ended  it  by 
saying:  "It  is  therefore  evident  that  he  has  not  the 
necessary  qualifications  to  govern  this  colony." 

It  was  in  the  condition  of  things  that  the  troubles 
with  the  Indians  should  be  never  ending.  The  colony 
was  weak  in  numbers.  There  were  but  279  people  all 
told  in  1708 — and  yet  they  were  full  of  arrogance  in 
dealing  with  the  Indians.  The  Chickasaws,  being 
allies  of  the  English,  were  steadfast  enemies.  The 
Choctaws,  as  enemies  of  the  Chickasaws,  were  encour- 
aged to  go  hunting  both  Chickasaws  and  English,  but 
their  friendship  was  not  always  to  be  trusted.  The 
Alibamons  (from  whom  Alabama  was  named),  though 
nominally  at  peace,  frequently  waylaid  and  murdered 
the  French  for  the  sake  of  the  plunder.  And  when  they 
heard  the  French  boast  of  the  greatness  and  pow- 
er of  the  French  King,  these  redmen  asked  with 
unconcealed     contempt,     how     it     happened     then 

62 


Mississippi   Valley. 

that  this  great  king  did  not  send  soldiers 
to  avenge  the  many  murderous  aggressions  under 
which  the  colony  had  suffered.  "The  very  existence 
of  the  colony  is  daily  threatened  by  the  Indians,"  says 
one  account. 

But  a  worse  picture  than  that  remains.  In  1709 
provisions  became  so  scarce  that  the  colonists  were 
reduced  to  a  diet  of  acorns,  and  Bienville  reported  that 
he  had  been  obliged  to  send  half  his  soldiers  among 
the  Indians  because  he  could  not  obtain  enough  food 
for  them  in  any  other  way. 

For  ten  years  these  people  had  been  in  the  country. 
They  had  come  there  not  merely  to  man  forts  but  to 
people  the  region — to  create  a  new  French  empire. 
They  were  at  the  gateway  of  the  most  wonderful  farm- 
ing region  of  the  world — a  valley  that  can  readily  sup- 
port 200,000,000  people.  And  yet  here  they  were  in 
more  desperate  straits  than  the  Indians  whom  they 
despised. 

Few  words  suffice  to  tell  of  the  actual  work  in  the 
interior  of  the  great  valley  by  the  French  people.  Late 
in  1702,  Juchereau,  of  Montreal,  established  a  fur- 
buying  station  near,  if  not  exactly,  where  Cairo,  III., 
now  stands.  He  helped  to  make  a  profit  from  copper 
and  lead  ores  that  had  been  found  not  far  away.  In 
the  course  of  two  years  he  built  a  tannery,  made  some 
leather,  shipped  out  a  few  furs  and  accumulated  a  stock 
of  30,000  buffalo  skins.  Then  he  fled  through  fear  of 
the  Indians,  (whom  he  had  wronged,  no  doubt),  leav- 
ing the  huge  store  of  skins  to  waste. 

Some  prospectors  went  up  the  Missouri  river,  in 
1705,  and  built  a  small  fort  above  the  Ossages,  but 

63 


A  History  of  the 

it  was  afterward  abandoned.  Explorers  went  above 
the  Natchitoches  on  the  Red  River.  The  coureurs  de 
hois  from  the  upper  lakes  region,  in  some  numbers, 
brought  their  furs  to  Mobile,  but  Bienville  himself 
describes  them  as  Canadian  vagabonds  leading  a  wan- 
dering and  licentious  life  among  the  Indians,  rather 
than  additions  to  the  new  settlements.  The  indefa- 
tigable Tonti  came  to  live  at  Mobile,  but  soon  (1702) 
died  of  the  yellow  fever.  In  short  it  was,  as  a  whole, 
a  colony  of  paupers. 

Finding  that  his  politicians  were  unable  to  make 
the  colony  self-supporting  the  King,  on  September  14, 
1 712,  turned  it  over  to  Anthony  Crozat,  a  wealthy 
merchant  who  undertook  the  task  of  managing  it  on 
business  principles  for  fifteen  years. 

Crozat  was  to  have  the  exclusive  privileges  of  the 
Louisiana  trade,  all  mines  of  precious  metals  to  be  dis- 
covered' were  his  on  payment  of  a  royalty  of  one- fourth 
of  the  yield ;  he  was  permitted  to  import  one  ship  load 
of  negroes  per  year;  the  King  was  to  pay  $10,000  a 
year  toward  the  expenses  of  the  garrison,  for  nine 
years.  In  return  Crozat  was  to  send  out  "two  ship 
loads"  of  colonists  a  year,  and  pay  all  the  expenses 
above  the  King's  contribution. 

La  Mothe  Cadillac,  who,  for  a  number  of  years 
had  been  the  governor  of  Detroit,  (at  which  point  the 
French  located  on  July  24,  1701),  was  made  governor 
of  Louisiana,  where  he  arrived  May  17,  171 3.  The 
instructions  from  Crozat  to  Cadillac  were  brief  in  sub- 
stance, if  multitudinous  in  words.  He  was  to  search 
"diligently"  for  mines,  and  to  open  a  trade  with  ]\Iexi- 
co — with  the  consent  of  the  authorities,  if  that  were 

64 


Mississippi   Valley. 

possible,  but  without  it  if  they  refused.     He  was  to 
trade  with  the  Indians,  also,  of  course. 

From  the  settling  of  Biloxi,  the  French  had  traded 


A  Section  of  Joutel's  Map,  1713. 

with  the  Spanish  of  Pensacola,  contrary  to  law,  but 
now  smuggling  was  to  be  part  of  the  business  com- 
manded by  the  ruler  of  Louisiana. 

65 


A  History  of  the 

The  population  at  this  time,  it  is  said,  included 
one  hundred  soldiers,  seventy-five  Canadians  in  the 
pay  of  the  King,  twenty  negro  slaves  and  300  plain 
citizens,  who  were  much  scattered,  owing  to  the  fam- 
ines that  had  prevailed. 

Cadillac  wrote  a  frank  description  of  his  colony, 
on  January  i,  17 14,  saying,  as  quoted  by  Gayarre: 
"The  inhabitants  are  the  scum  and  refuse  of  Canada; 
ruffians  who  have  thus  far  cheated  the  gibbet  of  its 
due;  vagabonds  who  are  without  subordination  to  the 
laws,  without  any  respect  for  religion  or  the  govern- 
ment; graceless  profligates  who  are  so  steeped  in  vice 
that  they  prefer  the  Indian  females  to  French  women. 
*  *  *  But  what  shall  I  say  of  the  troops,  who  are 
without  dicipline,  and  scattered  among  the  Indians  at 
whose  expense  they  subsist?" 

To  learn  the  ways  of  life  under  this  commercial 
regime  we  need  only  read  the  complaints  of  Governor 
Cadillac,  as  set  forth  in  his  despatches.  He  quarrelled 
with  the  soldiers  because  they  were  "without  disci- 
pline," and  with  their  officers  because  they  refused  to 
apply  to  the  priests  for  the  holy  sacrament,  "even  at 
Easter."  "He  complained  bitterly  of  one  officer,  Capt. 
Richebourg,  of  the  dragoons,  (an  officer  who  came  to 
the  colony  in  the  ship  with  Cadillac)  because  he  "se- 
duced most  of  the  girls"  sent  over  by  the  King  to  be- 
come wives  of  the  colonists.  These  girls,  Cadillac  says, 
very  justly,  "ought  to  have  been  respected,"  but  he 
quarrelled  with  them  also,  on  arrival,  because  they 
did  not  at  once  find  husbands.  He  says  they  were 
left  on  his  hands  because  of  Richebourg,  but  Duclos, 
the  commissary,  whose  despatches  also  show  an  all- 

66 


Mississippi   Valley. 

absorbing  interest  in  this  matter,  wrote  that  the  girls 
were  "so  ugly  that  the  inhabitants  are  in  no  hurry  to 
take  them." 

Then  came  the  priests  who  "insisted"  that  he  ex- 
pel out  of  the  colony  two  women  of  bad  character.  "T 
have  refused  to  do  so,"  he  wrote,  "because  if  I  sent 
away  all  women  of  loose  habits  there  would  be  no  fe- 
males left,  and  this  would  not  meet  the  views  of  the 
government.  Besides,  one  of  these  girls  occupies  the 
position  of  a  servant  in  the  household  of  the  King's 
commissary,  who  will,  no  doubt,  reclaim  her  from  her 
vicious  propensities," 

There  is  but  one  reason,  of  course,  for  making 
these  quotations  from  the  official  despatches.  It  is  to 
show  clearly  the  character  of  these  so-called  settlers 
and  their  habits  of  thought  while  engaged  in  found- 
ing a  French  empire  in  America. 

However,  Cadillac  did  try  to  open  trade  with  Mexi- 
co. In  the  voyage  which  Iberville  made  to  Louisiana, 
in  1699,  he  brought  an  adventurous  youth  named 
Juchereau  de  St.  Denis.  After  his  arrival,  St.  Denis 
was  a  good  soldier.  He  obeyed  orders;  avoided  the 
ever  present  disputes  between  those  over  him  as  much 
as  possible;  made  friends  with  the  Indians,  and  went 
exploring  the  region  west  of  the  Mississippi,  especially 
along  the  Red  River. 

In  1 714,  Cadillac  sent  him  to  Mexico.  He  went  up 
the  Red  River  as  far  as  the  Natchitoches,  and  thence 
struck  out  on  the  route  to  the  Spanish  settlements  ly- 
ing along  the  Rio  Grande,  where  he  arrived  in  August. 
It  was  an  eminently  successful  expedition,  for  St. 
Denis.    He  fell  in  love  with  the  daughter  of  the  Span- 

67 


A  History  of  the 

ish  Governor,  was  arrested  as  a  smuggler,  refused 
splendid  offers  to  enter  the  Spanish  service,  escaped 
from  prison,  served  as  peacemaker  between  the  fron- 
tier Spaniards  and  plains  Indians,  married  the  lovely 
senorita,  and  returned  safe  to  the  French  settlements. 
A  subsequent  expedition  made  by  St.  Denis  was  not 
so  fortunate  even  for  him.  He  barely  escaped  from 
Mexico  with  his  life.  Every  sou  of  Crozat's  money 
spent  in  the  two  expeditions  was  lost,  and  large  quan- 
tities of  goods  sent  out  in  anticipation  of  a  successful 
smuggling  business  were  wasted. 

The  search  for  mines  had  a  similar  result.  As  a 
rule  Cadillac  employed  courcurs  dc  hois  as  prospectors, 
and  they  proved  to  be  the  fore-runners  of  the  "grub 
stake  eaters"  of  modern  days.  They  accepted  their 
supplies  of  food  and  instruments,  and  going  to  some 
favorite  Indian  village  gave  their  goods  to  their  friends, 
and  remained  there  until  the  time  came  to  report  pro- 
gress, when  they  returned  to  Cadillac  for  further  sup- 
plies. 

Lead  ore  was  found  in  southeastern  jNIissouri.  The 
lead  and  zinc  mines  in  IMissouri  have  been,  and  are 
now,  the  source  of  immense  wealth.  The  French  be- 
gan working  the  "prospect"  and  established  a  supply 
station  for  the  miners,  but  they  were  incapable  of  mak- 
ing the  ore  profitable. 

Crozat's  commercial  agents  did  something  in  the 
way  of  establishing  trading  stations.  Natchez,  ]\Iiss- 
issippi,  and  Nashville,  Tennessee,  have  grown  where 
trading  stations  were  built  in  17 14.  In  171 7  Cadillac 
sent  a  force  to  occupy  the  land  of  the  Natchitoches 
Indians,  on   Red   River,  and  in   17 19  Bernard  de  la 

68 


Mississippi   Valley. 

Harpe  built  Fort  St.  Louis  de  Carlorette  near  where 
Natchitoches  now  stands. 

Before  Cadillac's  time  (in  1700),  a  mission  for 
the  Illinois  Indians  had  been  established  where  Kaska- 
skia,  111.,  now  stands.  It  was  in  1717  a  considerable 
settlement.  Under  the  influence  of  the  priests  ploughs 
had  been  introduced,  windmills  erected  and  horsepower 
tread-mills  constructed. 

Crozat  finding  no  returns  even  from  the  trade  in 
furs,  which  lesser  merchants  had  found  so  profitable, 
remonstrated,  and  Cadillac  replied : 

"What!  Is  it  expected  that  for  any  commercial  or 
profitable  purpose  boats  will  ever  be  able  to  run  up  the 
Mississippi,  into  the  Wabash,  the  Missouri,  or  the  Red 
River?  One  might  as  well  try  to  bite  a  slice  off  the 
moon." 

One  quotation  from  the  despatches  will  suffice  for 
Cadillac's  Indian  policy.     He  wrote: 

"I  have  persuaded  the  brother  of  the  great  chief 
of  the  Choctaws  to  kill  his  sovereign,  and  brother, 
pledging  myself  to  recognize  him  as  his  successor.  He 
did  so  and  came  here  with  an  escort  of  100  men.  I 
gave  him  presents  and  secured  from  him  an  advan- 
tageous peace." 

On  June  22,  171 6,  Cadillac  wrote  a  despatch  say- 
ing: 

"Decidedly  this  colony  is  a  monster  without  head 
or  tail,  and  its  government  is  a  shapeless  absurdity." 
The  minister  of  the  colonies  department,  for  a  reply, 
added  a  postscript  to  a  letter  from  Crozat,  saying: 

"The  Governor,  La  Mothe  Cadillac,  and  the  com- 
missary, Duclos,  whose  intellects  are  not  equal  to  the 

69 


A  History  of  the 

functions  with  which  His  Majesty  has  instructed  them, 
are  dismissed  from  office." 

On  August  13,  1717,  Crozat,  having  concluded  that 
his  intellect  was  not  equal  to  the  task  of  managing 
Louisiana  on  business  principles,  surrendered  his  con- 
tract to  the  King. 

John  Law,  with  his  wondrous  schemes  of  finance, 
then  took  hold  of  the  colony  through  what  he  called 
the  Mississippi  company.  Law  at  23  years  of  age,  fled 
for  his  life  from  England.  By  his  love  for  deep  play 
and  his  gallantries  "he  had  squandered  a  fortune."  In 
a  duel  he  had  killed  a  man — unfairly,  it  is  presumed, — 
for  he  was  tried,  convicted  and  sentenced  to  be  hanged, 
on  a  charge  of  murder.  On  the  continent  he  intro- 
duced the  game  of  faro,  and  won  large  sums — more 
than  2,000,000  francs,  it  is  said.  He  established  a 
private  bank  in  Paris,  (May,  1716),  that  received 
Government  support.  Louis  XIV.  had  died  on  Sept. 
I,  171 5.  Louis  XV.  was  then  a  child  of  five  years,  and 
the  Duke  of  Orleans  ruled  as  Regent.  Louis  XIV.  had 
left  France  with  a  debt  of  80,000,000  livres,  while 
the  new  ruler  could,  at  best,  raise  9,000,000.  Law 
proposed  solving  the  difficulty  of  paying  eighty  mil- 
lions with  nine  by  issuing  notes  based  on  the  real  estate 
of  the  nation — a  million  in  paper  money  for  every  two 
millions  assessed  valuation  of  the  real  estate.  The 
scheme  was  accepted.  There  was  soon  an  abundance 
of  ''money"  in  the  nation.  Prices  rose  steadily;  with 
each  issue  of  "money"  prices  rose  in  geometrical  ratio. 
Fortunes  were  made  in  a  day.  Law  became  such  a 
favorite  with  the  Regent  that  he  "was  admitted  into 
all    the    licentious    privacies    of  the  Palais    Royal." 


LOUIS    XV.,    KING    OF    FRANCE. 


Mississippi   Valley. 

On  September  6,  171 7,  when  his  schemes  were 
dazzling  all  France,  he  floated  the  Mississippi  com- 
pany. This  company  was  to  develop  the  boundless 
resources  of  the  great  valley — to  take  up  the  work  in 
which  Crozat  had  failed.  The  valley  was  to  be  peo- 
pled ;  a  great  commerce  between  it  and  France  created ; 
the  smuggling  trade  with  Spanish-America  was  to  be 
promoted;  mines  of  gold  and  silver  were  to  be  dis- 
covered and  many  of  those  of  the  Spanish  were  to  be 
appropriated,  while  the  fur  trade,  already  established, 
was  to  be  greatly  enlarged.  And  all  this  for  the  benefit 
of  Law's  bank.  England  had,  just  then,  a  South  Sea 
bubble.  That  company  (it  was  established  in  1710), 
did  not  fail  until  1720,  and  it  was  therefore  reaching 
its  greatest  reputation  when  Law  floated  his  Mississippi 
scheme.  Law  was  familiar  with  the  plans  successfully 
used  by  the  South  Sea  Company  to  "boom"  their 
shares,  and  his  Mississippi  company  was  managed  in 
much  the  same  way. 

Pamphlets  were  distributed  setting  forth  the  won- 
ders of  the  Mississippi  Valley.  The  deposit  that  could 
be  filtered  from  the  water  of  the  river  yielded  gold  in 
immense  quantities,  said  these  pamphlets,  and  bars 
alleged  to  be  of  this  gold  were  placed  in  the  shop  win- 
dows of  Paris.  The  liquid  found  in  the  cup  of  a  cer- 
tain flower,  in  Louisiana,  turned  to  a  diamond  in  a 
single  night,  at  a  certain  season,  and  diamonds  from 
these  flowers,  as  alleged,  were  also  on  exhibition. 

Men  of  money  fought  for  place  in  the  line  when 
the  books  of  the  Mississippi  company  were  opened  for 
subscriptions. 

For  a  time,  too,  people — especially  those  of  broken 

71 


A  History  of  the 

fortune,  and  all  who  were  of  undue  greed — flocked  to 
the  company's  ships  that  were  sent  to  the  Mississippi ; 
but  this  human  tide  began  to  ebb  within  a  year;  for 
they  learned  the  truth,  on  landing,  of  course,  and  they 
found  means  to  tell  the  facts  in  France  where  their 
stories  of  hardship  were  exaggerated  as  much  as  the 
real  productiveness  of  the  region  had  been. 

Then  the  company,  under  due  license,  resorted  to 
press  gangs  to  fill  the  necessary  quota  of  emigrants. 
These  gangs  swept  the  beggars  from  the  streets,  the 
tramps  from  the  highways,  the  vile  from  the  houses 
of  correction.  With  these  were  taken  some  whose  sole 
offence  was  the  mistake  of  having  offended  people 
of  influence,  while  others  were  carried  to  the  shipping 
ports  in  order  to  extort  blackmail. 

In  spite  of  these  frauds  and  outrages,  however, 
some  real  work  was  done  in  Louisiana.  Even  John 
Law,  though  a  thief  and  a  murderer,  was  to  leave  his 
mark  on  the  Mississippi  River. 

When  Law's  company  took  charge  of  Louisiana, 
Bienville,  who  was  really  the  only  man  of  notable 
ability  in  the  colony,  was  made  governor  once  more, 
and  his  first  work  under  his  new  commission  was  to 
be  of  lasting  importance  to  the  Mississippi  Valley. 

The  fort  built  by  Iberville  on  the  bank  of  the  Missis- 
sippi had  been  abandoned.  Bienville  had  wished  to 
build  a  new  one  at  a  point  higher  up  the  river,  while 
Cadillac  ruled,  but  Cadillac  refused  permission.  Now 
Bienville  could  do  as  he  pleased,  and  the  new  fort 
was  at  once  planned. 

The  point  at  which  he  determined  to  build  is  of 
special  interest.     In  his  travels  through  the  neighbor- 

72 


Mississippi   Valley. 

hood  Bienville  had  observed  that  two  bayous  running 
from  Lake  Pontchartrain  were  "navigable  by  small 
sea-going  vessels  to  within  a  mile  of  the  bank  of  the 


New  Orleans  1728. 

Mississippi."  There  was  an  Indian  portage  from  one 
of  these  bayous  to  the  great  river.  Bienville  had 
passed  his  youth  in  Canada — he  saw  that  a  trading  sta- 

73 


A  History  of  the 

tion  built  where  this  trail  reached  the  Mississippi  would 
have  communication  with  all  points  on  the  Great  River 
and  its  tributaries,  and  at  the  same  time,  would,  by  the 
back  door  of  Lake  Pontchartram,  reach  with  equal 
ease  the  region  to  the  east.  A  fort  there  would  com- 
mand the  river,  and,  in  a  way,  Lakes  Pontchartrain 
and  Maurepas,  and  the  waters  beyond. 

On  an  unnamed  day  in  February,  soon  after  the 
'  arrival  of  his  commission,  Bienville  sent  ''twenty-five 
convicts,  and  as  many  carpenters,  with  some  voyageurs 
from  the  Illinois,"  to  the  river  end  of  that  portage  trail. 
A  narrow  strip  of  dry  land  was  found  there.  It  ^  lay 
about  ten  feet  above  the  ordinary  stage  of  the  river 
surface,  but  had  been  formed  by  deposits  of  sediment 
made  when  the  river  was  flooding  high.  This  bank 
was  plainly  subject  to  overflow,  and  the  slope  toward 
the  lake  reached  the  swamp  level  a  mile  back  of  the 
river.  But  Bienville  was  willing  to  risk  the  damage 
that  extra  high  water  might  do,  and  the  convicts  and 
carpenters  he  sent  there,  cleared  away  the  moss- 
covered  trees  and  underbrush. 

Then  they  built  on  the  height  of  land  a  straggling 
row  of  houses  having  log  walls  that  were  not  snake 
proof,  bark  roofs  that  were  not  rain  proof  and  chim- 
neys—fire places— made  of  sticks  plastered  over  with 
thick  masses  of  clay.  And  to  these  shelters  came 
"three  companies  of  infantry  and  a  small  body  of  colo- 
nists," on  March  9,  171 8. 

In  such  fashion  was  the  great  city  of  New  Orleans 

founded. 


74 


LOUIS    XIV.,    KING    OF    FRANCE. 


V 


INDIANS  OF  THE  MISSISSIPPI  VALLEY. 

The  Pathetic  Story  of  a  Race  of  Children  Who  Were 
Taken  from  Their  Play  and  Set  at  the  Work  of 
Butchers  and  Scalp  Hunters — Indian  Motives  Com- 
pared with  Those  of  the  Whites — Story  of  a  Kansas 
Real  Estate  Agent  and  Charlie  Quapaw — The  Mora- 
vian and  the  Quaker  Methods  of  Treating  Indians 
Considered — The  Most  Important  Statement  in  This 
Book. 


With  the  founding  of  the  city  of  New  Orleans  the 
movement  which  was  to  people  the  valley  of  the  Missis- 
sippi with  the  white  race  and  displace  the  red  men,  was 
fully  begim.  For  while  Father  Gravier  was  making 
ploughs  and  horse-power  tread-mills  at  Kaskaskia, 
and  Bienville  was  working  after  a  fashion  at  New 
Orleans,  the  British  colonies  were  spreading  to  the  Alle- 


A  History  of  the 

ghanies.  Gov.  Spotswood  of  Virginia,  with  fifty  fol- 
lowers, "Knights  of  the  Golden  Horseshoe,"  and  "an 
abundant  variety  of  liquors"  went  (1716)  to  the  crest 
of  the  Blue  Ridge,  where  with  his  eyes  to  the  west  "he 
took  possession  of  this  place,  in  the  name  and  for  King 
George  the  First,  drank  the  King's  health  in  cham- 
pagne, and  fired  a  volley."  From  this  height,  or  some 
other,  he  saw  that  "the  British  plantations  are  sur- 
rounded." The  French  are  in  position,  he  said,  not  on- 
ly to  "engross  the  whole  skin  trade,"  but  to  "send  such 
bodies  of  Indians  on  the  back  of  these  plantations'* 
as  might  "greatly  distress  his  Majesty's  subjects  here." 

The  remedy  for  these  well-seen  evils  was  to  form 
settlements  beyond  the  range,  and  in  saying  so  Gov. 
Spotswood  voiced  the  sentiment  of  nearly  all  the  think- 
ing people  in  the  British  colonies. 

Therefore  mighty  hosts  were  to  gather,  later  on, 
at  the  passes  of  the  Alleghanies — mighty,  if  few  by 
count,  and  sometimes  not  well  ordered.  The  volley 
which  Spottswood  fired  while  on  the  crest  of  the  Blue 
Ridge,  though  fired  with  powder  only,  and  heard  no 
further  west  than  the  springs  that  fed  the  Shenandoah, 
— was  in  a  way  the  first  in  the  conflict  that  drove 
the  foolish  cackling  French  from  their  stations  in  the 
Great  Basin,  and  with  many  whirligigs  of  dust  and 
smoke,  swept  the  red  nations  into  the  refuse  heaps, 
unpleasant  enough  to  look  at,  that  we  call  reservations. 

It  seems  necessary,  therefore,  to  stop  here  and  con- 
sider what  manner  of  men  these  Indians  were  original- 
ly; what  influence  the  white  men  had  upon  their  char- 
acter; what  rights  they  had  in  the  land,  and  in  what 
ways  and  how  far  their  rights  were  violated. 

76 


Mississippi   Valley. 

In  the  days  between  Champlain's  battle  on  the 
outlet  of  Lake  Champlain,  (1610),  and  the  found- 
ing of  the  city  of  New  Orleans,  (1718),  the  important 
families  or  "linguistic  stocks"  of  Indians  occupying  the 
Iklississippi  Valley  were  the  Algonquian,  the  Siouan, 
the  Iroquoian,  the  Muskhogean  and  the  Cadoan.  They 
covered  the  whole  region  save  only  for  six  spots,  rel- 
atively very  small,  that  were  occupied  by  small  com- 
munities, having  languages  of  their  own,  the  remnants, 
very  likely,  of  ancient  tribes  that  had  been  reduced  to 
insignificance  by  the  inexorable  law  of  the  survival 
of  the  fittest. 

The  location  of  these  families  are  shown  at  a  glance 
in  a  map  prepared  by  Major  J.  W.  Powell  ("Linguistic 
Stocks  of  American  Indians  North  of  Mexico"). 

Of  the  different  tribes  into  which  the  families  were 
divided,  some  account  may  be  given  here.  Along  the 
Alleghanies  were  the  Cherokees,  Chickasaws,  Choc- 
taws  and  Creeks,  though  the  Creeks  were  mainly  found 
in  what  is  now  Georgia,  and  had  an  offshoot  in  Flori- 
da, called  Seminoles.  In  1785  they  were  supposed  to 
number  70,000  souls.  The  Cherokees  were  Iroquoian, 
the  others  Muskhogean.  One  writer  believes  there  were 
9,500  warriors  among  the  Southern  Indians. 

Northwest  of  the  Ohio,  in  the  18th  century,  were 
the  Shawanees,  Delawares  and  Miamis,  of  Algonquian 
stock,  with  the  Wyandots,  (a  remnant  of  the  old  Hu- 
rons),  and  as  years  passed,  many  of  the  Iroquois  con- 
federation who  were  here  called  ]\Iingos.  Mingled  with 
these,  when  the  whites  came  to  the  Ohio,  w^ere  indi- 
viduals from  further  west — Pottawattomies,  Ottawas, 
Chippewas   and   Foxes.     Andrew   McFarland  Davis, 

77 


A  History  of  the 

of  the  American  Antiquarian  Society,  estimated,  (Win- 
sor's  "History  of  America"),  that  "there  were  about 
35,000  warriors  east  of  the  Mississippi,  in  the  United 
States  and  across  the  straits  at  Detroit,"  at  the  time 
of  the  war  of  the  Revohition.  The  Shawnese,  at  that 
time,  had  about  300  warriors,  the  Delawares  600  and 
the  Wyandotts  200 — ah  northwest  of  the  Ohio.  The 
Iroquois  had  2,000  warriors.  What  was  known  as  the 
"Ottawa  Confederation" — a  loose  aggregation  of  west- 
ern tribes — had  8,000  warriors,  of  whom  3,000  Hved 
near  Detroit,"   (Winsor). 

Most  interesting  is  a  study  of  the  characteristics  of 
the  red  people  as  they  existed  before  they  came  in 
contact  with  white  men.  Let  the  reader  who  is  not 
familiar  with  the  matter  forget  what  his  school  histories 
taught  him,  put  aside  his  prejudices,  whatever  they 
may  be.  Above  all  let  him  put  aside  for  the  present 
what  the  men  who  have  lived  among  modern  Indians 
have  to  say  about  them.  Parkman,  for  instance, 
thought  he  had  learned  the  characteristics  of  the  abo- 
rigines by  living  among  a  tribe  that  had  been  trading 
with  white  men  for  more  than  200  years.  Let  the 
judgments  of  such  men  be  put  aside,  and  then  consider 
what  the  scientific  ethnologists  have  learned  and  print- 
ed, after  long  and  patient  labor,  about  the  American 
aborigines.  The  reader  who  has  seen  the  modern 
Indian  and  like  Parkman,  has  lived  among  them,  should 
be  especially  careful  not  to  allow  prejudice  to  influence 
him.  For  it  has  been  shown  that  the  dog  soup,  dirt 
and  carnivorous  insects  of  the  wigwam  and  tepee 
almost  invariably  prejudice  a  clean  man's  mind  so 
that  he  is  incapable  of  rendering  a  fair  judgment. 

78 


Mississippi   Valley. 

Scientific  investigation  has  learned  first  of  all  that 
it  was  not  a  roaming  or  nomadic  people.  It  is  true 
that  a  party  of  the  Siouan  people  had  gone  away  from 
the  original  family  home  to  settle  at  Biloxi.  Another 
party  had  become  Catawbas  living  on  the  east  side  of 
the  Alleghanies.  The  Shawnees  had  lived  in  various 
localities.  But  these  were  migrations  of  sedentary 
people, — migrations  due  to  family  quarrels — and  were 
not  the  wanderings  of  nomads.  The  nearest  approach 
to  a  nomadic  life  was  found  on  the  plains  where  such 
tribes  as  the  Pawnees  followed  migratory  herds  of  buf- 
falo for  limited  distances. 

Being  sedentary,  the  tribes  were,  as  a  whole,  devel- 
oping into  agriculturalists — becoming  farmers.  "They 
were  fast  progressing  from  the  hunter  state,"  says 
Powell  in  "Indian  Linguistic  Families."  Corn  was  the 
chief  of  their  cultivated  foods.  In  the  Jesuit  "Rela- 
tions" one  of  the  missionaries  speaks  of  a  Huron  chief 
who  had  two  caches  of  corn,  each  containing  125  bush- 
els. That  was  in  Canada.  In  the  south  the  corn  crop 
reached  tens  of  thousands  of  bushels. 

More  notable  still  some  of  the  Indians  were  on 
the  threshold  of  taming  wild  animals  for  domestic  use. 
The  Creeks  of  each  village  refrained  from  hunting 
over  certain  tracts  of  land  where  products  of  the  forest 
relished  by  bears,  abounded,  until  the  bears  there  be- 
came both  fat  and  tame.  Then  when  meat  was  needed 
a  bear  was  quietly  killed.  Precautions  were  taken  to 
keep  the  bears  tame,  that  is  to  say,  and  the  range  well 
stocked. 

To  say  that  the  tribes  were  sedentary  implies  that 
they  had  dwellings  of  more  or  less  substantial  char- 

79 


A  History  of  the 

acter.  The  Iroquoians  and  other  northern  tribes  built 
great  shelters  of  poles  covered  with  bark.  The  Dacotah 
Sioux  covered  the  poles  with  buffalo  skins.  The 
Pawnees  built  houses  with  sod  walls.  The  Natches  and 
the  Ouapaws  built  houses  with  a  latticed  frame  covered 
with  adobe  clay.  The  Cherokees  and  Muskhogean 
built  good  log  houses.  It  is  a  right  curious  fact  that 
the  red  men  learned  to  build  thick  dirt  walls  to  keep 
out  heat  before  they  learned  to  use  such  walls  to  keep 
out  cold. 

Of  the  Indian  canoes  and  dugouts  as  means  of 
transportation  only  mere  mention  seems  necessary. 

The  Indian  had  developed  the  art  of  making  pot- 
tery, baskets  and  cloth.  They  made  sufficient  tools  of 
Stone,  shells  and  wood.  Some  that  had  native  copper 
had  learned  to  beat  it  into  ornaments  with  a  skill 
that  the  whites  who  first  came  to  America  were  unable 
to  surpass.  They  had,  indeed,  begun  to  develop  the 
higher  talent  of  the  artist  and  they  had  made  the  first 
steps  toward  a  written  language. 

There  is,  perhaps,  nothing  more  interesting  in  the 
story  of  the  red  American  than  the  few  facts  we  know 
about  their  culture  of  the  higher  faculties — their 
groping  after  something  that  was  not  a  necessary  of 
life. 

Consider  their  first  steps  in  the  development  of  a 
written  language.  One  may  presume  that  their  at- 
tempts to  write  out  ideas  grew  out  of  their  sign  lan- 
guage, or  were  suggested  by  it.  And  it  is  not  difficult 
to  think  that  the  sign  language  was  developed  before 
articulate  speech. 

Many  ideas  were  conveyed  by  movements  and 
80 


Mississippi   Valley. 

postures  of  the  body — by  living  pictures,  that  is  to 
say.  A  Dacotah  standing  on  one  bank  of  a  river  saw 
strangers  on  the  further  side  and  held  aloft  his  left 
hand  to  ask,  "Who  are  you  ?"  And  one  of  the  strangers 
put  two  fingers  of  each  hand  up  above  his  head  in  a 
way  to  suggest  the  sharp,  peaked-up  ears  of  the  wolf, 
and  thus  replied,  "We  are  wolves — Pawnees," 

From  making  these  living  pictures  it  was  but  a 
short  step,  easily  taken,  to  the  painting  or  carving  of 
pictures  that  would  convey  ideas.  They  had  learned 
to  paint  and  carve  some  pictures  of  their  sign  language 
on  their  pottery,  on  wood  and  on  smooth  stones.  Most 
remarkable  are  some  of  the  rock  carvings  that  are  yet 
to  be  found  along  the  Mississippi  and  its  branches. 
Pictures  of  men,  beasts,  birds,  reptiles  and  insects 
abound.  With  these  are  found  pictures  of  the  tracks 
of  men  and  animals,  and  of  figures  and  lines  oft  re- 
peated that  represent  nothing  to  our  minds. 

Many  essays  and  books  have  been  written  about  the 
picture  writing  of  American  Indians — works  that 
usually  describe  rather  than  explain  the  Indian  pictures 
— but  some  advance  in  comprehending  this  red  litera- 
ture has  been  made  by  the  scientific  specialists.  Says 
Mr.  James  IMooney,  (  Seventeenth  annual  report  Bureau 
of  Ethnology)  : 

"It  is  known  that  our  own  tribes  had  various  ways  of  de- 
picting their  mythology,  their  totems,  or  isolated  facts  in  the 
life  of  individual  or  nation,  but  it  is  only  within  a  few  years 
that  it  was  even  suspected  that  they  could  have  anything  like 
continuous  historical  records,  even  in  embryo. 

"The  fact  is  nozv  established,  however,  that  pictographic 
records,  covering  periods  of  from  sixty  to  perhaps  200  years  or 
more,  do  or  did  exist  among  several  tribes,  and  it  is  entirely 
probable  that  every  leading  mother  tribe  had  such  a  record  of 

81 


A  History  of  the 

its  origin  and  wanderings,  the  pictured  narrative  being  compiled 
by  the  priests  and  preserved  vi^ith  sacred  care  through  all  the 
shifting  vicissitudes  of  savage  life,  until  lost  or  destroyed  in  the 
ruin  that  overwhelmed  the  native  governments  at  the  coming  of 
the  white  men." 

Time  was  when  all  of  these  tribal  histories  might 
have  been  gathered,  or  copies  made.  The  white  men 
might  have  learned  exactly  what  ideas  the  Indians  in- 
tended to  convey  when  making  some  of  the  noted  pic- 
tures now  called  petrographs.  For  when  the  first  mis- 
sionaries and  the  first  traders  went  among  the  Indians 
the  art  of  stone  writing  was  at  its  best.  But  because 
Indian  art  work  or  culture  was  commonly  found  in 
connection  with  Indian  religion,  our  missionaries  were 
shocked  by  the  "idolatrous  exhibits,"  and  strove  in 
earnest,  well-meaning  fashion,  to  turn  the  Indian 
thoughts  from  pictured  totems,  and  dreams  of  happy 
hunting  grounds,  to  a  conception  of  a  cubical  city 
built  of  jewel  stones,  and  having  streets  paved  with 
gold. 

As  for  the  traders  who  might  have  learned  some- 
thing about  this  latest  development  of  Indian  culture — 
this  picture  writing — it  is  enough  to  say  that  the  one 
thought  constantly  animating  their  minds  was  to  ex- 
change a  pint  of  rum,  or  six  cents'  worth  of  red  paint, 
for  a  beaver  skin  worth  ten  dollars  in  the  white  settle- 
ments. The  poet-naturalist  of  Concord  wrote  that 
"trade  curses  everything  it  handles,"  and  no  men  in 
the  history  of  civilization  and  commerce  have  been  so 
fully  engrossed  or  so  utterly  degraded  and  deeply 
cursed  by  their  trade  as  those  who  have  dealt  with  the 
aboriginal  inhabitants  of  the  earth.  With  them  even 
a  thought  of  fair  dealing  was,  (and  is),  a  manifestation 

82 


s^^>c 


Mississippi   Valley. 

of  contemptible  weakness;  the  ability  to  over  reach 
the  sauvage  was  the  only  feature  of  mind  worth  praise 
or  cultivation. 

In  short,  through  egotistical  prejudice  and  foul 
greed,  we  threw  away — refused  to  gather — the  full 
knowledge  of  how  men  in  the  stone  age  of  the  world 
began  to  develop  their  higher  faculties. 

Nevertheless  some  knowledge  remains.  A  glance 
at  the  arrow  heads  with  notched  edges;  at  the  bas- 
kets and  pottery,  illuminated  with  the  lightning  flashes 
from  the  thunder  god,  and  at  the  ornaments  of  beaten 
copper,  shows  unmistakably  that  a  love  of  the  beautiful 
was  growing  among  them,  and  that  many  of  their 
products  portrayed  the  joy  of  the  artist  in  his  work. 

Consider  next  the  subject  of  aboriginal  warfare. 
It  is  in  connection  with  this  subject  that  one  needs  to 
forget  what  his  school  histories  teach  him.  Says  Major 
Powell  in  "Indian  Linguistic  Families";  (p.  39)  : 

"Altogether  the  character  of  the  Indian  since  the 
discovery  of  Columbus  has  been  greatly  changed,  and 
he  has  become  far  more  war-like  and  predatory.  Prior 
to  that  time,  tribes  seem  to  have  lived  together  in 
comparative  peace,  and  to  have  settled  their  difficulties 
by  treaty  methods.  Their  accumulations  were  not  so 
great  as  to  be  tempting,  and  their  modes  of  warfare 
were  not  exceedingly  destructive.  *  *  *  Battle  for 
plunder,  tribute  and  conquest  was  almost  unknown. 
Such  intertribal  wars  as  occurred  originated  from 
other  causes,  such  as  infractions  of  rights  relating  to 
hunting  grounds  and  fisheries,  and  still  oftener  preju- 
dices growing  out  of  their  superstitions." 

For  the  sake  of  emphasis  let  this  be  repeated. 
83 


A  History  of  the 


Of  an. 


Fo\m-A  ou  t\ie    Sciota  Kavex 
DISTRICT  of  CSILICOTB-E. 

Wa,lls    ^v^feet     in    hetjhu 


84 


Mississippi    Valley. 

Although  the  red  men  "had  not  yet  entered  completely 
into  the  agricultural  condition,"  they  "were  fast  pro- 
gressing from  the  hunter  state."  "Battles  for  plunder, 
tribute  and  conquest  were  almost  unknown." 

War  never  was  and  never  will  be  advantageous  to 
mankind  as  a  whole,  however  necessary  at  times  be- 
tween nations;  but  for  the  red  men  such  wars  as  oc- 
curred before  the  whites  came  were  not  an  unmixed 
evil.  For  they  fought  hand  to  hand,  or  at  close  range; 
they  fought  for  the  love  of  their  country  and  for  glory. 
Thus  they  learned  to  face  death  with  unruffled  minds, 
and  to  covet  something  higher  than  physical  wealth. 

Then,  too,  through  wars  they  built  fortifications — 
they  became  mound  builders,  though  their  mounds 
were  also  erected  for  the  purpose  of  worship.  Many 
earthen  forts  were  found  in  the  Mississippi  valley,  and 
we  know,  now,  that  it  was  not  some  prehistoric  tribe 
of  superior  intelligence  that  built  them.  Nothing 
proves  the  white  man's  lack  of  intelligent  observation 
so  conclusively  as  does  this  now  abandoned  notion 
about  a  prehistoric  tribe  of  superior  attainments. 

Consider  one  of  these  Indian  fortifications — that 
one  built  where  Marietta,  Ohio,  now  stands.  There 
was  one  square  fort,  fifty  acres  in  extent  (one  authori- 
ty says  forty),  and  another  twenty-seven,  (or  twenty) 
large.  The  walls  were  from  twenty  to  thirty  feet  wide 
on  the  base  when  surveyed.  It  is  fair  to  presume  that 
these  earth  walls  were  originally  surmounted  by  pali- 
sades, for  wooden  forts  were  common  enough. 

There  were  other  \vorks  of  less  extent,  in  and 
near  these  two,  including  elevated  mounds  within  the 
squares,  a  guarded  passage  way,  680  feet  long,  to  the 

85 


A  History  of  the 

Muskingum  river,  a  well-protected  cemetery,  an  en- 
closed field,  a  large  camp  ground,  &c. 

At  least  ten  thousand  cubic  yards  of  earth  were 
piled  into  the^walls  of  the  passageway  that  led  down  the 
hillside  toward  the  Muskingum,  and  how  many  thou- 
sands in  the  remaining  walls  need  not  nowbecalculated. 
What  should  be  considered  is  the  fact  that  the  Indians 
had  neither  shovels  nor  wheel  barrows  when  they  built 
these  walls.  How  many  days,  therefore,  did  they  la- 
bor in  digging  the  earth  with  their  rude  tools  and 
carrying  it  up  by  hand  to  build  those  walls  ?  And  yet 
we  have  been  told  in  our  school  histories  that  the  In- 
dian was  by  nature  lazy! 

Huge  mounds  were  built  for  graves,  as  well  as 
for  war.  The  structure  that  gives  its  name  to  Mounds- 
viHe  on  the  Ohio,  is  as  interesting  as  any.  It  is  one  hun- 
dred feet  in  diameter  at  the  base,  sixty-eight  feet  high 
and  fifty-five  in  diameter  at  the  top.  The  mound  was  tun- 
neled at  the  surface  of  the  earth,  in  1838,  and  a  shaft 
was  sunk  from  the  top  down  to  the  tunnel.  Thirteen 
skeletons,  with  shell  beads,  copper  rings  and  plates 
of  mica  for  ornaments,  were  found  in  two  vaults  that 
had  been  lined  and  covered  with  timbers. 

It  is  evident  that  the  Indian  would  work  when  he 
had  a  motive  that  he  considered  adequate,  but  his  mo- 
tives were  not  always  those  of  the  whites.  The  white 
man  who  turned  the  tunnel  in  Moundsville  mound  into 
a  lager-beer  saloon,  some  years  ago,  was,  doubtless, 
animated  by  some  motives  which  the  red  builders  of  the 
mound  could  not  have  comprehended.  And  that  white 
man  undoubtedly  held  the  entire  red  race  in  contempt. 

We  have  now  arrived  at  what  really  is  the  red 
86 


Mississippi   Valley. 

man — that  is,  at  the  motives  that  inspired  him  to  ac- 
tion; for  all  men  should  be  judged,  at  last,  by  their 
aspirations. 

To  learn  what  the  Indian  motives  were,  consider 
first  that  every  red  settlement  was  literally  a  communi- 
ty, especially  in  the  food  supply,  "The  hungry  In- 
dian had  but  to  ask  to  receive  *  *  *  it  was  his  right 
to  demand"  a  share. 

"Indiscriminate  hospitality"  followed.  We  see 
herein  one  feature  of  Indian  life  that  attracted  many 
white  men.  The  white  visitors  might  eat,  even  though 
they  could  not  provide  food  for  themselves  or  others. 
With  men  of  the  habits  of  thought  of  the  white  race, 
this  "indiscriminate  hospitality"  would,  and  does,  de- 
stroy industry  and  thrift.  Free  food  at  the  kitchen 
door  adds  to  the  number  of  tramps.  It  is  believed 
by  some  philosophers  that  the  selfish  love  of  money — 
the  desire  to  get  rich — is  all  that  sustains  the  push 
of  enterprise. 

But  among  the  Indians,  game  was  killed  and 
shared,  corn  was  cultivated  and  shared,  and  clothing, 
tools  and  weapons  were  made  and  shared,  year  after 
year,  without  pauperizing  the  race.  The  race  made 
progress,  in  fact,  in  spite  of  the  influence  of  a  custom 
that  would,  it  is  alleged,  pauperize  the  white  race. 

How  did  it  happen,  then,  that  work  was  done,  and 
progress  achieved  without  the  spur  of  greed?  Says 
Powell:  "The  peculiar  institutions  prevailing  in  this 
respect  gave  to  each  tribe  or  clan  a  profound  interest 
in  the  skill,  ability  and  industry  of  each  member.  He 
was  the  most  valuable  person  in  the  community  who 
supplied  it  with  the  most  of  its  necessities.     For  this 

87 


A  History  of  the 

reason  the  successful  hunter  or  fisherman  zvas  akvays 
held  in  high  honor,  and  the  woman  who  gathered  great 
store  of  seeds,  fruits  or  roots,  was  one  zvho  commanded 
the  respect  and  received  the  highest  approbation  of  the 
people. 

A  desire  for  honor  among  his  people  was  the  chief 
motive  that  inspired  the  Indian.  And  the  Jesuits  in 
their  "Relations"  tell  of  Indians  who,  in  the  pursuit 
of  game,  continued  the  chase  until  death  from  ex- 
haustion overtook  them.  For  the  sake  of  standing 
zvcll  in  his  community  the  Indian  zvonld  sometimes 
zi'ork  till  he  died.  For  killing  game  was  unquestion- 
ably work  with  the  Indians;  it  required  much  more 
strength  and  endurance  than  digging  ditches  or  build- 
ing forts. 

But  the  common  motive  of  the  white  man  made  no 
appeal  to  him. 

A  Kansas  real  estate  dealer  was  once  good  enough 
to  go  with  the  writer  of  this  chapter  into  the  Ouapaw 
reservation.  There,  as  it  happened,  we  met  Ouapaw 
Charlie,  the  Indian  chief.  And  as  the  real  estate  deal- 
er and  the  Indian  looked  at  each  other,  a  feeling  of 
contempt,  deep  and  unrestrained,  appeared  in  the  face 
of  the  white  man,  and  found  expression  in  his  words. 
That  Indian  had  a  thousand  acres  of  the  fattest  land 
of  America.  If  he  would  but  cultivate  it  he  might 
sell  the  produce  for  $5,000  a  year,  clear  profit,  and 
rapidly  accumulate  those  evidences  of  wealth  for  which 
the  white  race  strives.  But  there  he  lived  in  a  little 
log  hut  with  its  acre  or  two  of  corn  and  vegetables. 
He  killed  rabbits,  quails  and  prairie  chickens,  now 
and  then,  and  he  often  fished  in  the  nearby  stream: 

88 


Mississippi    Valley. 

but  his  food  was  coarse  and  his  clothing  worse.  The 
Kansas  man  did  not  beheve  God  meant  that  such  be- 
ings should  cumber  the  earth. 

But  while  the  Kansas  man  talked  the  Indian  gazed 
back  at  him  with  a  feeling  of  contempt  equally  deep 
and  hearty.  The  Kansas  man  had  been  "booming"  a 
townsite.  He  had  been  working  day  and  night.  His 
eyes  were  red  from  lack  of  sleep.  His  hands  trem- 
bled from  nervous  exhaustion.  The  "boom"  had  "gone 
broke."  Rest  and  peace  were  words  but  dimly  under- 
stood by  this  feverishly  energetic  man  of  business. 
Could  he  have  come  into  the  possession  of  Charlie 
Ouapaw's  acres  he  would  have  obtained  less  comfort 
from  them  than  the  Indian  did,  for  he  would  have 
surveyed  a  town  site  immediately,  and  started  another 
"boom,"  with  all  its  deadly  nervous  exhaustion. 

Ouapaw  Charlie  was  not  condemned  by  this  white 
man  for  failing  to  use  his  abundant  leisure  in  the  study 
of  literature,  or  the  study  of  art,  or  the  study  of  nat- 
ure. He  was  not  condemned  for  any  ill  use  of  leisure. 
He  was  condemned  for  having  leisure.  Why  didn't 
he  plow  and  sow  and  reap  from  sun  to  sun,  and  do  the 
chores  by  lantern  light?  That  was  the  query  of  the 
indignant  man  from  Kansas. 

The  bald  truth  is  that  the  Indian's  habit  of  thought 
was  in  exact  accord  with  the  Christian  precept  which 
says;  "Having  food  and  raiment  be  ye  therewith  con- 
tent." And  he  used  some  of  his  abundant  leisure  in 
ornamenting  his  weapons,  and  in  making  petrographs. 

The  Indian  government  was,  perhaps,  the  loosest 
bond  that  ever  held  peoples  together.  It  was  a  simple 
democracy  so  far  as  it  was  like  anything  called  govern- 

89 


A  History  of  the 


Andeot  Fottificatioes  near  Newark,  Licking  Coaotyi  Obiftari 


90 


Mississippi   Valley. 

ment  among  the  whites.  Important  matters  were  con- 
sidered by  the  whole  people  in  open  council,  and  in 
these  councils  the  women  often  had  a  part,  and  their 
advice  was  considered.  The  majority  of  the  whole 
tribe  decided  to  follow  this  or  that  course;  in  many 
cases  a  tribe  would  unanimously  agree  on  some  im- 
portant matter.  But  when  a  majority  considered  one 
course  advisable  the  minority  was  free  to  follow  its 
own  course;  and  even  when  all  were  agreed,  their 
fickleness  soon  divided  them. 

As  for  the  chiefs,  the  whole  community  constantly 
weighed  the  merits  of  each  member  of  it,  and  the  in- 
dividual's influence  was  in  exact  proportion  to  his  abili- 
ties. A  war  chief  was  an  able  fighting  man ;  the  sa- 
chems were  the  most  astute  statesmen  and  diplomats. 
But  the  ruler  ruled  only  by  influence — by  advice  and 
example — not  as  a  despot.  Each  individual  might  do 
as  he  pleased  even  to  making  war  when  peace  had  been 
declared  by  the  chiefs. 

By  dwelling  on  the  good  qualities  only  of  the  In- 
dian, one  easily  comes  to  believe  that  he  was,  if  a 
"little  lower  than  the  angels,"  not  far  from  as  good  as 
the  white  man.  It  is  worth  while  to  remember  that 
he  was  of  a  lower  race — one  far  less  developed  than 
the  white  race.  In  ferocity  the  American  Indians  were 
unsurpassed.  They  continually  acted  on  the  theory 
that  "hanging  was  too  good"  for  certain  offences.  They 
burned  captured  enemies  to  death,  and  prolonged  the 
torture.  In  doing  this  the}''  were  animated  by  various 
motives;  they  did  it  for  revenge  and  to  awe  the  tribe 
to  which  the  prisoner  belonged,  hoping  thus  to  prevent 
future  aggressions  in  the  same  direction. 

91 


A  History  of  the 

That  is  to  say  they  tortured  a  prisoner  to  death — 
burned  him  aHve — in  order  "to  protect  their  homes." 

They  sometimes  tortured  prisoners  at  the  stake 
through  rehgious  motives — as  a  duty  to  their  gods — 
but  never  to  make  converts,  or  restrain  conscience. 

But  behind  all  these  motives  was  the  pleasure  which 
undeveloped  men,  and  degenerates,  feel  when  they  see 
another  in  pain.  As  a  race  these  undeveloped  men 
found  intense  delight  in  the  prolonged  suffering  of 
their  victims.  When  La  Salle's  agents  went  among 
the  Iroquois  to  get  permission  to  build  a  fort  at  Niaga- 
ra, a  victim  was  burned  by  way  of  entertaining  them. 

It  is  asserted  by  some  writers  that  ferocity  was 
cultivated  as  a  virtue,  and  pity  condemned  as  a  vice 
by  the  Indian.  It  is  certain  that  in  their  gatherings 
each  man  rose  to  his  feet  and  boasted  of  his  deeds  of 
prowess — of  the  scalps  he  had  taken,  and  the  tortures 
he  had  inflicted.  It  was  not  idle  boasting  either.  The 
scalps  were  in  evidence,  the  audience  knew  the  state- 
ments to  be  true.  And  when  they  approved  the  boast- 
ing words  the  hearts  of  the  boys  burned  with  an  eager 
ambition  to  do  deeds  of  which  they  might  boast  in  like 
manner.  Red  boys  were  taught  to  hunt  for  scalps. 
But  in  the  course  of  nature — of  evolution — the  har- 
vesting of  corn,  and  the  making  of  copper  ornaments, 
and  the  carving  of  petrographs,  were  coming  to  oc- 
cupy much  more  time  than  the  gathering  of  scalps. 
They  were  taming  themselves  while  they  tamed  wolves 
and  made  preserves  for  bears. 

The  Indian's  idea  of  love  has  been  much  discussed, 
but  we  will  never  doubt  that  red  mothers  loved  their 
children  as  white  mothers  love  theirs.     In  the  rela- 

92 


Mississippi   Valley. 

tions  between  the  sexes,  however,  it  seems  impossible 
that  what  we  call  heroic  unselfish  love,  (such,  for  in- 
stance, as  Ruskin  bore  for  his  unworthy  wife),  w^as 
ever  known  among  them.  Passion  was  unrestrained. 
Indulgence  was  no  cause  for  shame.  The  unfaithful 
wife  was  sometimes  punished.  Grosseilliers  and  Rad- 
isson  "observed  with  much  admiration,"  says  a  Jesuit 
writer,  "that  one  tribe  of  Indians  cut  off  the  noses"  of 
unfaithful  wives.  The  unfaithful  man  was,  of  course, 
never  punished.  The  man  without  sin  could  not  be 
found  to  cast  the  first  stone.  The  Indians  had  no  con- 
ception of  what  we  call  sexual  morality.  The  girls 
might  do  as  they  pleased.  The  guests  of  the  tribe — 
even  the  white  trader  who  came  to  swindle  them,  in 
after  years — received  not  only  his  food,  but  a  wife. 
And  when  the  Indian  came  to  visit  the  whites  he  was, 
at  times,  not  a  little  astonished  and  indignant  because 
they  were  not  equally  hospitable.  In  short,  the  Indians 
were  wholly  unmoral  in  sexual  matters.  In  some 
tribes  they  were  too  vile  to  be  discussed  by  self  re- 
specting men. 

In  other  morals  they  were  little  better.  They  would 
lie  for  fun,  and  for  gain.  It  is  true  that  treaties  be- 
tween the  whites  and  the  Indians  were  usually  broken 
by  the  whites.  It  would  have  afflicted  an  Indian  with 
syncope  had  he  moved  swiftly  enough  to  get  ahead 
of  the  whites  in  breaking  treaties.  Nevertheless,  it  is 
certain  that  the  aboriginal  Indians  would  strive  by 
lying  and  deceit  to  gain  advantages  over  their  neigh- 
bors. And  all  of  this  but  proves  that  he  was  a  lower 
race  of  men — that  is,  not  so  far  developed  as  the  whites. 

In  religion  the  Indian  believed  in  many  super- 
93 


A  History  of  the 

natural  beings  or  spirits.  He  did  not  believe  in  one 
supreme  Gitche  Manitou  until  the  white  man  came. 
The  early  missionaries  were  led  into  error,  in  this 
matter,  by  asking  leading  questions.  The  religion 
of  the  Indian  was,  in  short,  a  belief  in  devils — a  be- 
lief quite  as  sincere  and  as  intelligent  as  that  of  Milton, 
however.  Among  the  Natchez,  and  apparently  among 
some  Arkansas  Indians,  they  had  arrived  at  that  state 
of  mental  development  where  men  were  employed  con- 
tinually as  priests.  It  was  a  cruel  priesthood.  The 
whole  system  of  Indian  worship  was,  essentially,  a 
series  of  attempts  to  bribe  the  gods  into  granting  fa- 
vors and  withholding  evils,  but  their  fear  of  devils 
was  very  much  stronger  and  more  influential  with  them 
than  their  hope  of  pleasures. 

Nevertheless,  if  approached  with  sympathy,  in- 
stead of  prejudice — if  the  student  is  not  quite  sure 
that  he  has  a  monopoly  of  the  knowledge  of  God — 
the  Indian  religions,  so  far  as  known,  are  worth  study. 
The  Indians  saw  in  the  blossoms  of  spring  "the  power 
that  catches  out  of  chaos  charcoal,  water,  lime,  or 
what  not,  and  fastens  them  down  into  a  given  form," 
and  they  called  that  power  a  spirit.  "And  we  shall 
not  diminish  but  strengthen  our  conception  of  this 
creative  energy  by  recognizing  its  presence  in  lower 
states  of  matter  than  our  own,"  for  it  is  "properly 
called  spirit."  He  saw  that  the  bird  **is  little  more 
than  a  drift  of  air  brought  into  form  by  plumes,"  and 
that  "in  the  throat  of  the  bird  is  given  the  voice  of 
the  air,"  A  spirit  was  made  tangible  in  this  drift  and 
voice  of  air.  A  god  that  was  not  always  evil  was 
found  "in  that  running  brook  of  horror  on  the  ground," 

94 


Mississippi   Valley. 

the  serpent.  They  believed  gods  move  in  a  mysterious 
way  their  wonders  to  perform,  and  plant  their  foot- 
steps in  the  sea  and  ride  upon  the  storm.  As  they 
gazed  into  the  glories  of  the  sunset  they  thought  and 
said  they  "could  almost  see,  through  opening  vistas 
into  heaven."  And  when  the  milky  way  lay  white 
across  the  vault  of  the  purple  night  they  said  with 
hushed  voices,  "it  is  the  pathway  of  the  departed  souls." 

They  had  an  unquestioning  faith  in  the  immortality 
of  the  soul.  Whenever  a  Natchez  chief  died,  says 
Father  le  Petit,  (Jesuit  Relations,  vol.  xlviii),  "the 
women  (wives)  are  always  strangled  to  follow  (him), 
except  when  they  have  infants  at  the  breast,  in  which 
case  they  continue  to  live  for  the  purpose  of  nourish- 
ing them.  And  zve  often  see  many  zvho  endeavor  to 
find  nurses,  or  who  themselves  strangle  their  infants 
so  that  they  shall  not  lose  the  right  of  sacrificing  them- 
selves." Neither  by  argument  or  force  could  the 
French  keep  these  wives  from  following  their  dead 
chiefs.  They  had  never  heard  of  a  city  whose  walls 
were  made  of  diamonds  and  whose  streets  were  paved 
with  gold,  but  they  dreamed  of  a  land  where  lakes  and 
streams  andprairiesand  forests  and  hillsand  mountains 
forever  charmed  the  eye;  where  the  ills  of  life  were  un- 
known; where  peace  reigned;  where  friends  gathered; 
where  joy  was  untainted.  And  to  that  land  they  fain 
would  go. 

Unfortunately  for  the  race  the  Indians  saw  the 
work  of  an  evil  spirit  and  nothing  else  in  almost  every 
case  of  sickness.  The  work  of  their  medicine  men  was 
horrible  and  destructive.  Their  practices  killed  where 
rational  nursing  would  have  saved.    The  villages  of  the 

95 


'A  History  of  the 

Indians  generated  diseases  because  of  the  utter  lack  of 
knowledge  of  the  proper  way  to  dispose  of  offal.  They 
were  inexpressibly  filthy.  They  were  worse  even  than 
the  modern  wdiite  villagers  who  dig  wells  between 
barns  and  cesspools,  and  ascribe  the  subsequent  cases 
of  sickness  to  the  providence  of  God. 

We  think  of  the  Indians  as  a  healthy  race,  made 
robust  by  hardships  endured  in  early  life.  It  is  a 
savage  as  well  as  an  erroneous  idea.  The  Indian  suf- 
fered hardships  and  tortures  voluntarily  in  order  to 
toughen  his  fibre,  and  such  acts  helped  him  mentally, 
very  likely,  but  they  weakened  his  body.  The  lack  of 
sanitation,  the  hardships  of  unsheltered  lives,  the  prac- 
tices due  to  superstition,  and  famine  due  to  thoughtless 
Indulgence,  were  the  chief  causes  of  death  among  the 
Indians.  Inability  to  cope  w^ith  disease,  and  to  look 
ahead  to  a  time  wdien  food  would  surely  be  scarce,  were 
the  causes  that  exterminated  some  tribes,  rather  than 
war — that  is  to  say,  in  the  days  before  the  whites  came. 
Other  tribes  survived  because  their  habits  and  practices 
were  less  destructive. 

As  one  reads  of  the  life  of  the  Indians  when  the 
wdiites  first  saw  them,  and  as  one  gains  a  knowledge 
of  their  lives  as  seen  by  whites  among  them,  even  in 
the  modern  days,  it  becomes  evident  that  the  red  men 
were  in  many  ways  merely  a  human  race  less  de- 
veloped than  the  wdiites,  and  wnth  a  smaller  capacity  for 
self-development.  "They  are  like  children,"  has  been 
said  by  a  thousand  white  men  who  knew  them  well. 
The  w^ords  are  accurately  descriptive.  They  were,  and 
they  are  children.  In  their  villages  they  drummed  and 
sang  and  danced,  day  and  night ;  they  played  tricks  and 

96 


Mississippi   Valley. 

cracked  jokes  and  told  stories  that  made  the  audiences 
shout  with  laughter. 

To  these  tribes  of  undeveloped  men — of  children — 
came  the  whites  bringing  a  book  which,  they  said, 
(and  believed),  contained  the  Word  of  Life.  Two 
courses  were  then  open  to  the  whites  in  their  treat- 
ment of  the  Indians,  and  very  good  directions  for  fol- 
lowing each  course  were  to  be  found  in  their  Word  of 
Life.  There  was  the  method  of  dealing  with  men 
which  was  laid  down  in  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount. 
A  notable  command,  (not  yet  fully  comprehended), 
that  was  found  in  connection  with  the  Sermon  on  the 
Mount  plan  said,  "Thou  shalt  love  thy  neighbor  as 
thyself,"  and  the  context  of  this  command  explained 
that  it  zn'os  to  be  applied  more  particularly  to  inferior 
people.  The  white  men  might  have  followed  this  plan, 
if  they  had  comprehended  it,  but  they  didn't  compre- 
hend it.  The  story  of  the  Son  of  God  coming  to  the 
earth  to  serve  beings  lower  than  angels  was  as  pearls 
under  their  feet. 

The  other  plan  was  found  in  the  account  of  the 
Israelitish  invasion  of  Canaan.  The  whites  who  came 
to  America  comprehended  that  plan  very  well,  but  they 
didn't  adopt  that  either.  They  believed  themselves 
the  true  and  only  accepted  children  of  God,  and  that 
a  Canaan  was  before  them,  but  they  could  not  bring 
themselves  to  wage  a  war  of  extermination  against 
the  red  inhabitants.  For  they  had  left  their  homes 
proclaiming  in  one  way  and  another  that  the  first  ob- 
ject of  their  migration  was  "to  preach  and  baptize 
into  the  Christian  religion,  and  by  the  propagation  of 
the  Gospel,  to  recover  out  of  the  armies  of  the  devil, 

97 


A  History  of  the 

a  number  of  poor  and  miserable  souls  wrapt  up  unto 
death  in  almost  invincible  ignorance,  *  *  *  and  to 
add  our  myte  to  the  Treasury  of  Heaven."  They  did 
not  wish  to  add  their  "myte"  by  immediately  exter- 
minating all  the  Indians. 

Carlyle  said  that  "true  Guidance  [is]  properly,  if 
he  knew  it,  the  prime  want  of  man."  It  was  the  prime 
want  of  the  red  men,  (and  of  all  undeveloped  men), 
beyond  question,  and  it  ought  to  have  been  given  to 
him  in  a  way  that  would  have  enforced  "loving  obe- 
dience." The  thought  is  idle  now,  but  suppose  the 
whites  had  asked  the  Indians  for  pottery  or  baskets 
or  corn,  instead  of  furs,  offering  in  exchange  house- 
hold implements  and  tools  as  well  as  the  harmless  if 
silly  mirrors,  beads  and  trinkets.  It  is  almost  con- 
ceivable that  all  whites,  being  professed  Christians, 
might  have  treated  all  Indians  as  the  Quakers  did 
some,  or  as  the  Moravians  treated  the  Delawares  in 
Gnadenhutten,  (the  story  of  which  shall  be  told)  — 
might  have  turned  the  wildmen  into  industrious,  peace- 
loving  agriculturists,  thus  deciding  the  land  question 
before  it  arose. 

It  is  conceivable  that  the  whites  might  have  given 
the  Indian  herded  cattle  and  tame  fowls,  in  time,  and 
thus  have  fixed  him  in  his  sedentary  pursuits,  while 
they  promoted  his  mental  powers  by  a  demand  for  the 
simple  goods  and  ornaments  he  was  able  to  make. 
They  might  have  made  a  Gnadanhutten  of  every  In- 
dian village  in  the  land.  This  is  the  most  important 
statement  in  this  book.  The  Moravians  took  wild 
Delawares — Indians  who  lived  wild  lives,  and  were, 
moreover,  exasperated  at  ill  treatment  received  from 

98 


Mississippi   Valley. 

the   whites — and   out   of  them  made  sober,   earnest, 
stump-grubbing  farmers. 

There  is  even  a  practical  side  to  this  idle  fancy. 
By  adopting  the  Quaker  and  Moravian  ideas,  all  the 
merciless  slaughter,  and,  (here  we  are  practical),  the 
greater  part  of  the  infinite  waste  and  expense  of  the 
Indian  wars,  would  have  been  saved.  We  hope  that 
this  practical  consideration  may  excuse  the  mention 
of  such  a  sentimental  proceeding  as  the  application  of 
Christian  principals  to  a  business  transaction. 

Sad  to  relate  the  white  man  did  nothing  like  this. 
On  the  contrary  the  two  white  peoples  who  came  to 
America  in  the  Seventeenth  Century  utterly  checked 
and  turned  back  the  Indian's  natural  current  of  evolu- 
tion. 

In  proof  of  this  assertion  consider  the  effect  of  the 
rum — how  the  squaws  with  trembling  limbs  hastened 
to  hide  all  weapons  when  the  trader  arrived.  Con- 
sider the  smallpox  and  other  diseases  which  the  whites 
introduced  among  the  red  men. 

Consider  the  effect  of  what  is  called  the  innocent 
trade  that  the  whites  established.  The  whites  offered 
a  variety  of  goods  that  were  always  tempting,  and  in 
some  cases  very  useful  to  the  Indians.  But  the  whites 
wanted  furs  only  in  exchange  and  in  order  to  get  the 
goods  offered  for  furs,  the  Indians  abandoned  all  other 
pursuits  to  go  hunting.  The  Indian  had  been  "fast 
progressing  from  the  hunter  state,"  but  the  white  de- 
mand for  skins  stopped  that  progress  and  turned  him 
back  to  the  slaughter  of  wild  beasts.  From  1610  until 
long  after  the  end  of  the  Eighteenth  Century  the  whites 
assiduously  cultivated  the  fur  trade,  and  then  won- 

99 


A  History  of  the 

dered  why  it  was  the  Indians  preferred  the  hunter's 
life  to  that  of  a  stump-grubbing  farmer!  They  made 
liquor  the  chief  article  of  exchange,  and  yet  the  whites 
— even  the  historians — were  disgusted  because  the  In- 
dian became  a  drunken  beggar. 

Consider  the  effect  of  the  guns  which  were  sold 
to  some  tribes  and  not  to  others.  Says  the  Jesuit  Re- 
lation for  1659-60: 

"The  Dutch  took  possession  of  these  regions  and 
conceived  a  fondness  for  the  beaver  *  *  *  and  in 
order  to  secure  them  in  greater  number  they  furnished 
those  people  with  firearms,  with  which  it  was  easy  to 
conquer;  *  *  *  ?V  has  also  put  into  their  heads  that 
idea  of  sovereign  sway  to  zvhich  they  aspire,  mere  bar- 
barians although  they  are,  with  an  ambition  so  lofty." 

But  the  posession  of  arms  and  the  greed  of  domin- 
ion were  only  the  beginning  of  the  cultivation  of  the 
red  man's  ferocity.  In  the  journal  of  Father  Le 
Moyne,  written  while  on  a  mission  to  the  Onondagas, 
in  1654,  he  describes  at  length  a  speech  which  he  made 
to  the  Indians  on  August  10.  This  journal  can  be 
found  in  the  Jesuit  Relation  for  1653-54,  Thwaite's 
edition,  p.  iii. 

'T  opened  the  proceedings  with  public  prayers," 
says  the  Father  and  when  that  was  ended,  "I  told 
them  that  in  my  speech,  I  had  nineteen  words  to  lay  be- 
fore them."  That  is,  he  had  nineteen  propositions  and 
statements  to  make,  each  of  which  was  emphasized  by 
a  present.  Of  the  first  seven  of  these,  nothing  need 
be  said  here,  but  to  quote  the  words  of  the  father,  "the 
purpose  of  the  eighth,  ninth,  tenth  and  eleventh  pres- 
ents was  to  give  each  of  these  Iroquois  Nations  a 

100 


Mississippi    Valley. 

hatchet  to  be  used  in  the  new  war  in  which  they  were 
engaged  with  the  Cat  Nation." 

A  white  missionary  sicked  on  the  Iroquois  dogs  to 
devour  the  unfortunate  Eries.  And  the  Abbe  Piquet 
was  the  most  active  and  the  most  influential  man  in 
Canada  in  instigating  those  bootless  raids  made  by  the 
converted  Abenakas  and  IMohawks  on  the  helpless  set- 
tlers of  New  England  previous  to  1750. 

Even  that  does  not  tell  all  the  story.  Read  the 
following  from  Winsor's  "Mississippi  Basin,"  (pp. 
242-243)  : 

"The  several  governments  of  the  English  Colonies,"  writes 
Colonel  Stoddard  at  this  time  (1747)  to  Governor  Shirley,  "had 
for  three  years  been  persuading  the  Iroquois  'into  a  zcar  wherein 
they  had  not  any  concern  but  to  serve  their  friends,  and  they 
have  left  their  hunting  and  other  means  of  living  and  exposed 
themselves  and  families  for  our  sakes,  only  to  be  left  in  the 
lurch.'  *  *  *  This  failure  of  the  English  to  support  the 
Indians  in  wars  which  the  savages  undertook  for  the  defence  of 
the  Colonies  was  nothing  new." 

This  is  a  most  important  matter  in  any  considera- 
tion of  the  character  of  the  red  Americans.  Before 
the  white  men  came  "battle  for  plunder,  tribute  and 
conquest  was  almost  unknown,"  says  Powell,  the  best 
authority  on  the  history  of  the  red  race.  But  from  the 
time  the  whites  came  until  the  French  rule  in  America 
was  ended,  the  most  conspicuous  feature  of  the  history 
of  the  white  dealings  with  the  Indians  is  found  in  the 
oft-repeated  offers  of  rewards  for  scalps.  The  whites 
steadily  incited  the  Indians  to  fight,  and  buying  scalps 
did  not  cease  until  the  last  remnant  of  European  power 
was  swept  from  the  Mississippi  valley. 

One  reads  much  about  the  wickedness  of  robbing 

lOI 


A  History  of  the 

the  Indian  of  his  hunting  grounds — as  if  that  were  the 
great  wrong  done  him.  It  is  all  nonsense.  The  one 
injury  done  him  that  is  worth  remembering — the  in- 
jury that  was  deadly  to  the  white  race  as  well  as  to  the 
red — was  in  persuading  him  to  abandon  his  self-ac- 
quired opportunity  to  develop  himself,  and  go  hunting 
for  skins  and  for  scalps. 

The  hunting  grounds  of  the  Indians  should  have 
been  taken  from  him  to  the  last  acre.  The  writers 
who  have  bewailed  his  loss  of  hunting  grounds  do  but 
show  how  much  they,  not  the  Indians,  are  to  be  pitied. 
And  it  is  chiefly  because  the  white  race  is  still  blind  to 
the  real  wrong  done  the  red  that  this  wretched  story 
is  worth  some  consideration  here.  It  is  never  in  vain 
to  remember  that  the  whites,  while  boasting  of  their 
Christian  religion,  sowed  saltpetre  and  sulphur,  and 
were  inexorably  obliged  to  reap  hell-fire. 

It  is  a  most  pathetic  story — a  story  of  children  ta- 
ken from  peaceable  play  and  set  to  the  bloody  work  of 
butchers.  And  when  New  Orleans  had  been  settled 
the  time  was  at  hand  when  the  English  and  the  French 
would  grasp  each  other  in  mortal  combat  to  determine 
which  should  have  sole  opportunity  of  robbing  the  un- 
fortunates— with  such  results  as  we  shall  see. 


102 


JOHN    LAW. 
Projector  of  the  Mississippi  Scheme. 


VI 


WORK  OF  THE  FRENCH  IN  THE  VALLEY. 


Law's  Mississippi  Company  and  Law  Himself  Did  Some- 
thing— Bienville's  Way  of  "Booming"  a  Town 
Site — Character  of  the  French-Americans  Described 
by  a  Candid  Priest — Indians  Burned  Alive  by  the 
French  at  New  Orleans — A  Southern  Gentleman's 
Opinion  of  Such  Deeds — Reasons  for  the  French 
Failure  as  Colonists  Plainly  Stated  by  French  Priests 
and  Soldiers. 

Stories  of  the  work  of  the  French  in  the  Mississip- 
pi Valley,  after  the  founding  of  New  Orleans  in  171 8, 
are  by  no  means  uninteresting,  nor  are  they  without 
significance.  John  Law's  company  began  work  very 
earnestly.  In  June,  after  the  founding  of  New  Or- 
leans, three  ships  brought  out  "colonists,  convicts  and 
troops,  in  all  800  souls."     Of  the  colonists,  148  were 

103 


A  History  of  the 

sent  up  to  Natchitoches, on  the  Red  River; 82  were  sent 
to  the  Yazoo,  and  68  remained  in  New  Orleans.  There 
were,  it  is  seen,  only  298  colonists  among  the  "800 
souls,"  and  Bienville  wrote  that  very  few  carpenters 
and  plowmen  were  to  be  found  among  the  colonists. 
The  number  of  convicts  is  not  stated,  but  the  fact  of 
their  presence  is  significant. 

In  October,  171 9,  200  Germans  came  to  settle  on 
a  tract  of  land,  twelve  miles  square,  that  belonged  to 
Law.  Others  followed.  It  was  in  making  a  settle- 
ment of  Germans  that  Law  left  a  permanent  impres- 
sion on  the  Mississippi  Valley.  For  these  Germans 
could  and  would  work.  When  Law,  after  having 
flooded  France  with  3,000,000,000  livres  of  paper  mon- 
ey, fled  for  life  with  only  800  livres  in  coin,  the  Ger- 
mans were  evicted  from  the  land  he  had  owned.  But 
other  land  was  given  them  on  the  river.  There  they 
thrived  by  good  work,  and  to  this  day  the  settlement 
is  known  as  the  German  coast. 

Besides  the  Germans  the  only  valuable  accessions 
to  the  population  in  1719  were  500  negro  slaves — the 
first  importation  of  any  size.  This  is  not  to  commend 
slavery,  but  to  point  out  the  fact  that  in  such  a  coun- 
try as  Louisiana  was  then,  any  workers  were  better 
than  idlers.  Hard  manual  labor  had  to  be  done  in  un- 
healthy localities,  and  the  slaves  did  it  then,  and  they 
were  found  equally  serviceable  in  later  years,  even 
though  slavery  was  a  curse  to  the  whites  in  the  long 
run. 

In  1 72 1  Bienville  sent  surveyors  to  lay  out  "a  suit- 
able site  for  a  city  worthy  to  become  the  capital  of 
Louisiana,"  and  Louisiana  in  those  days  included  the 

104 


M  ississipp i    J  ^ alley . 


A  Portion  of  Labat's  AIap,  1722. 


10: 


A  History  of  the 

•whole  Mississippi  valley  except  some  of  the  extreme 
upper  part  which  was  governed  from  Canada.  He 
wished  to  remove  the  seat  of  government  from  Mobile 
to  the  new  city,  but,  partly  from  a  love  of  opposing  the 
Governor,  his  associates  refused  to  do  so.  What  Bien- 
ville did  at  New  Orleans,  then,  is  worth  remembering. 
By  his  orders  streets  were  cut  through  the  brush,  and 
were  ditched ;  palisades  were  erected  around  the  town ; 
a  levee  was  made  (the  first  attempt  to  confine  the  Mis- 
sissippi to  its  channel),  and  warehouses  were  built  to 
accommodate  trade.  By  practical,  permanent  improve- 
ments, Bienville  brought  all  the  traders  of  Mobile  to 
the  new  town  site,  and  the  Government  officials  were 
obliged  to  follow  to  the  new  center  of  population. 

In  1724,  a  company  of  Jesuits  came  bringing  or- 
ange trees,  fig  trees,  and  indigo  plants.  They  also  gave 
attention  to  the  native  myrtle  bush  that  produced  a 
valuable  wax.  On  April  11,  1726,  Bienville  gave  them 
a  tract  of  land,  3,600  feet  front  on  the  river  and  9,000 
feet  deep,  where  now  is  found  the  heart  of  the  city, 
together  with  enough  slaves  to  work  the  tract;  and 
here  they  made  a  plantation  that  was  in  its  day  a  sort 
of  agricultural  experiment  station  and  therefore  valu- 
able. 

In  1727,  a  company  of  Ursuline  nuns  came  to 
open  a  school  for  girls — the  first  of  the  kind  in  the  val- 
ley— and  to  attend  to  the  sick  in  the  hospital  that  was 
built  soon  after  the  settlement  was  made.  A  letter 
written  by  sister  Hochard,  of  this  company,  soon  after 
her  arrival,  contains  the  following  description  of  life 
as  she  saw  it  in  times  of  plenty  among  the  official  and 
wealthy  class  in  the  young  city. 

106 


Mississippi    P^ alley. 

"Although  I  do  not  as  yet  know  perfectly  the  province  called 
Louisiana,  still  I  will  attempt,  dear  father,  to  give  you  some 
details  about  it.  I  assure  you  that  I  can  hardly  realize  that  I 
am  on  the  banks  of  the  Mississippi,  because  there  is  here,  in  cer- 
tain things,  as  much  magnificance  as  in  France,  and  as  much 
politeness  and  refinement.  Gold  and  velvet  stuffs  are  commonly 
used,  although  they  cost  three  times  as  much  as  in  Rouen.  Corn- 
bread  costs  ten  cents  a  pound,  eggs  from  forty-five  to  fifty 
cents  a  dozen,  milk  fifteen  cents  for  a  measure  that  is  half 
that  of  France.  We  have  pine  apples — the  most  excellent  of  all 
fruit — peas  and  wild  beans,  watermelons,  potatoes,  sabotines — 
which  are  very  much  like  our  gray  renette  apples — an  abund- 
ance of  figs  and  pecans,  walnut  and  hickory  nuts,  which,  when 
eaten  too  green,  act  as  astringents  on  the  throat.  There  are 
also  pumpkins.  I  do  not  speak  of  many  other  kinds  of  fruit  of 
which  I  have  heard,  but  with  which  I  am  still  unacquainted. 

"As  to  meat,  we  live  on  wild  beef,  venison,  wild  geese  and 
turkey  and  a  sort  of  swan,  hares,  chickens,  ducks,  teals, 
pheasants,  partridges,  quails,  and  other  game.  The  river  abounds 
in  monstrously  large  fishes,  among  which  the  sheepshead  must 
be  mentioned  as  excellent ;  and  we  have  also  rays,  carps,  and  an 
infinite  number  of  other  fishes  unknown  in  France.  A  great 
use  is  made  of  chocolate  and  coffee  with  milk.  We  eat  bread 
made  of  half  rice  and  half  wheat  flour.  We  have  wild  grapes 
larger  than  those  of  France.  They  do  not  grow  in  bunches, 
but  are  put  on  the  table  in  plates  in  the  fashion  that  prunes  are 
served. 

"The  dish  most  in  favor  is  rice  boiled  in  milk,  and  what  is 
called  sagamite,  which  consists  of  Indian  corn  pounded  in  a 
mortar  and  boiled  in  water  with  butter  or  lard.  The  whole 
people  of  Louisiana  regard  as  most  excellent  this  kind  of  food." 
(Translated  from  the  Catholic  World  by  Charles  Gayarre.  Italics 
not  in  original.) 

Meantime  there  was  some  little  growth  of  popula- 
tion elsewhere  in  the  valley.  In  1720,  Major  Pierre 
Dugue  Boisbriant,  (he  whose  wish  to  marry  had  been 
thwarted  by  Bienville),  went  up  the  river  with  100 
men  and  at  a  point  sixteen  miles  above  Kaskaskia 
built  a  fort  which  he  named  Chartres.    The  river  chan- 

107 


A  History  of  the 

nel  has  changed  to  and  fro  since  then,  but  Chartres 
Landing  still  perpetuates  the  memory  of  this  fort.  In 
1721,  Kaskaskia  became  a  parish,  and  in  1722,  Bois- 
briant,  who  ruled  as  commandant  of  the  region,  is- 
sued the  first  land  warrant  known  to  the  records  of 
what  is  now  the  state  of  Illinois. 

In  1 72 1,  a  capitalist  named  Philip  Francois  Re- 
nault brought  200  miners  and  500  slaves  to  the  point 
where  Galena  now  stands,  and  opened  the  lead  mines 
found  there.  In  this  year,  also,  the  Jesuits  established 
a  college  and  monastery  at  Kaskaskia,  and  "Fort  Char- 
tres became  not  only  the  headquarters  of  the  comman- 
dant in  Upper  Louisiana,  but  the  center  of  life  and 
fashion  in  the  West,"  as  Monette  says. 

The  details  of  this  "life  and  fashion,"  (as  he  got 
them  from  IMartin,  Flint  and  Stoddard),  are  given  by 
Monette,  who,  it  should  be  said,  is  a  most  sympathetic 
recorder  of  the  annals  of  the  French  in  Louisiana.  For 
the  sake  of  comparison  with  a  frontier  manner  of  life 
to  be  described  in  another  chapter  the  following  is 
worth  reading: 

"The  early  French  on  the  Illinois  were  remarkable 
for  their  easy  amalgamation  in  manners  and  customs 
and  blood"  with  the  red  men.  "Their  villages  sprang 
up  in  long  narrow  streets,"  with  each  family  home- 
stead so  contiguous  that  the  merry  and  social  villagers 
could  carry  on  their  voluble  conversation  "each  from 
his  own  balcony." 

"Each  homestead  was  surrounded  by  its  own  sepa- 
rate enclosure  of  a  rude  picket  fence.  The  houses  were 
generally  one  story  high,  surrounded  by  sheds  (veran- 
das) or  galleries;  the  walls  were  constructed  of  a  rude 

108 


Mississippi    Valley. 

framework,  having  upright  corner  posts  and  studs, 
connected  horizontally  by  numerous  cross  ties,  not 
unHke  the  rounds  of  a  ladder.  These  [cross  ties] 
served  to  hold  the  *cat  [straw  or  moss]  and  clay'  of 
which  the  walls  were  made  and  rudely  plastered  by 
hand. 

"The  chimney  was  made  of  similar  materials,  and 
was  formed  by  four  long  corner  posts,  converging  at 
the  top  to  about  one-half,  or  less  than  the  space  below." 

A  large -field  nearby  was  fenced  for  the  common 
use  of  the  villagers.  "The  season  for  plowing,  plant- 
ing, reaping  and  other  agricultural  operations  in  the 
'common  field'  was  regulated  by  special  enactments, 
or  by  public  ordinance,  and  to  take  place  simultaneous- 
ly in  each  village.  Even  the  form  and  manner  of  door 
yards,  gardens  and  stable  yards  were  regulated  by 
special  enactment." 

"The  winter  dress  of  the  men  w-as  generally  a 
coarse  blanket  capote  drawn  over  shirt  and  long  vest," 
which  served  both  as  cloak  and  hat,  "for  the  hood, 
attached  to  the  collar  behind,  hung  upon  the  back  and 
shoulders  as  a  cape,  and,  when  desired,  it  served  to 
cover  the  whole  head  from  intense  cold.  In  summer, 
especially  among  the  couriers  dc  hois,  the  head  was 
enveloped  in  a  blue  handkerchief,  turban  like." 

A  handkerchief  of  "fancy  colors,  wreathed  with 
bright  colored  ribbons,  and  sometimes  flowers,  formed 
the  head  dress  of  females  on  festive  occasions."  "The 
old  fashioned  short  jacket  and  petticoat,  varied  to  suit 
the  diversities  of  taste,  w^as  the  most  common  over 
dress  of  the  w'omen.  The  feet  in  winter  were  pro- 
tected  by   Indian   moccasins,   or   the   clog   shoes;    in 

109 


A  History  of  the 

summer  they  were  all  barefooted,  except  on  festive 
occasions,"  when  they  wore  "light  moccasins,  gor- 
geously ornamented  with  brilliants  of  porcupine  quills, 
shells,  beads,  lace,  ingeniously  wrought"  over  the 
whole  above  the  sole. 

The  traders  kept  a  heterogenous  stock  of  goods 
in  their  largest  rooms,  where  the  assortment  was  fully 
displayed  to  the  gaze  of  the  purchasers.  "The  young 
men  who  wished  to  see  the  world  sought  occupation 
as  voyageurs  and  their  return  was  greeted  with  smiling 
faces,  and  signalized  by  balls  and  dances  at  which  the 
whole  village  assembled." 

"The  commandants  were  invested  with  despotic 
authority."  "Learning  and  science  were  terms  beyond 
their  comprehension."  "The  priest  was  their  oracle 
in  matters  of  learning  as  well  as  in  the  forms  and  ob- 
servances of  religion."  "On  politics  and  the  affairs 
of  the  nation  they  never  suffered  their  minds  to  feel 
a  moment's  anxiety."  "Day  after  day  passed  by  in 
contentment  and  peaceful  indolence."  (Italics  not  in 
the  original.) 

And  yet,  being  agriculturists,  they  did  raise  food 
for  export.  In  1745  the  Illinois  country  sent  400,000 
pounds  of  grain  to  New  Orleans,  the  French  popu- 
lation being  then  not  far  from  900  souls,  all  told. 

Other  villages  near  Chartres  were  Prairie  du 
Rocher,  with  twelve  dwelling  houses  in  1770,  and  St. 
Phillippe  with  sixteen  dwellings.  Cahokia  (called 
Kaoquias  by  the  French),  was  at  this  date  a  long 
straggling  village  of  forty-five  dwellings  and  a  church. 

A  trading  post  was  established  at  or  near  the  site 
of  New  Madrid  as  early  as  1740  (according  to  tra- 

IIO 


Mississippi    Valley. 

dition).  The  region  was  notable  for  its  number  of 
bears,  and  the  "principal  occupation"  of  the  inhabi- 
tants "was  the  chase  of  that  animal,  and  the  prepara- 
tion and  sale  of  bears'  oil."  Hence  the  voyageiirs 
named  it  "L'Anse  de  la  Graisse" — Grease  Bay. 

St.  Genevieve  was  not  established  in  Missouri  until 
about  1755. 

Following  the  Illinois  settlements  came  the  occu- 
pation of  the  Wabash  country.  The  Fox  Indians 
living  around  the  Wisconsin  River  proved  implacable 
enemies  to  the  French,  in  the  Eighteenth  century. 
Neither  blandishments,  nor  attacks  that  drove  them 
temporarily  from  their  homes,  could  bring  these  In- 
dians to  the  French  interests,  and  the  portages  at  the 
Fox  River  and  the  Chicago  River,  and  the  St.  Joseph- 
Kankakee  portage  became,  in  spite  of  fortified  posts,  so 
dangerous  that  the  voyageiirs  from  the  St.  Lawrence 
began,  as  early  as  1705,  to  use  the  portage  from  the 
Maumee  to  the  Wabash. 

This  portage  had  been  avoided  in  the  Seventeenth 
century  because  of  fear  of  the  Iroquois.  The  route  led 
up  the  Maumee  to  the  St.  Mary's  branch, the  present  site 
of  Ft.  Wayne,  Indiana.  A  portage  of  three  leagues 
brought  the  courciirs  de  hois  to  a  branch  of  the  Wa- 
bash. According  to  Father  Marest,  a  stockade  was 
built  on  the  upper  Wabash  previous  to  171 2,  but  it 
appears  that  the  route  was  not  popular  previous  to 
17 16.  The  post  on  the  upper  Wabash  was  called 
Ouiatanon.  Lafayette,  Ind.,  stands  on  the  site  of 
Ouiatanon.  It  stood  at  the  mouth  of  Little  River.  In 
1705  some  enterprising  coiircurs  de  hois  collected 
15,000  skins  on  the  Wabash  and  took  them  to  Mobile, 

III 


A  History  of  the 

where  they  were  received  joyously,  because  it  was  the 
first  arrival  from  the  Wabash. 

The  fortified  trading  post  of  Vincennes  was  estab- 
lished where  Vincennes,  Indiana,  now  stands,  by  i\Ion- 
sieur  Vincennes  in  1722.  But  Vincennes  did  not  be- 
come a  settlement,  properly  so  called,  until  1734  or 
1735,  when  a  number  of  families  made  homes  there. 

Father  du  Poisson,  describing  what  he  saw  in  a 
journey  made  from  New  Orleans  to  the  Arkansas, 
beginning  ]\Iay  25,  1727,  says  (Jesuit  Relations,  vol. 
Ixvii)  : 

"A  tract  of  land  granted  by  the  company  of  the 
Indies  to  a  private  individual,  for  the  purpose  of  clear- 
ing that  land  and  making  it  valuable,  is  called  a  con- 
cession. *  *  *  'pi'ig  concessionaries  are,  therefore, 
the  gentlemen  of  the  country.  The  greater  part  of 
them  are  not  people  who  would  leave  France,  but  they 
equipped  vessels  and  filled  them  with  superintendents, 
stewards,  storekeepers,  clerks,  and  workmen  of  various 
trades,  with  provisions  and  all  kinds  of  goods.  They 
[these  workmen],  had  to  plunge  into  the  woods  to  set 
up  cabins,  to  choose  their  ground,  and  burn  the  cane 
brakes  and  trees.  This  beginning  seemed  very  hard 
to  people  not  at  all  accustomed  to  that  kind  of  labor; 
the  superintendents  and  their  subordinates,  for  the 
most  part,  amused  themselves  in  places  where  a  few 
Frenchmen  had  already  settled,  and  there  they  con- 
sumed their  provisions.  The  work  had  hardly  begun 
when  the  concession  was  ruined;  the  workmen,  ill-paid 
or  ill-fed,  refused  to  work,  or  himself  took  his  pay; 
the  warehouses  were  pillaged.  Do  yon  not  recognise 
in  this  the  Frciichinanf" 

112 


Mississippi    J^allcy. 

"There  are  also  people  who  have  no  other  occu- 
pation than  that  of  roving  about :  ist.  The  women  or 
girls  taken  from  the  hospitals  of  Paris,  or  from  the 
Salpetriere,  or  other  places  of  equally  good  repute, 
who  find  that  the  laws  of  marriage  are  severe,  and  the 
management  of  a  house  too  irksome.  A  voyage  of 
400  leagues  does  not  terrify  these  heroines;  I  already 
know  of  two  of  them  whose  adventures  would  furnish 
materials  for  a  romance.  2nd.  The  travellers;  these 
for  the  most  part  are  young  men  sent  to  the  ]\Iissis- 
sippi  'for  various  reasons'  by  their  relatives,  or  by  the 
law,  and  who,  finding  that  the  land  lies  too  low  for 
digging,  prefer  to  hire  themselves  to  row  and  ply 
from  once  shore  to  another.  3rd.  The  hunters,''  who 
supplied  Xew  Orleans  with  dried  buffalo  meat,  skins 
and  bears'  oil,  a  class  of  men  not  reprobated  by  the 
father,  though  most  of  the  writers  speak  harshly  of 
these  wood  rangers. 

In  the  course  of  forty  years  after  Iberville  came  to 
Louisiana,  the  French,  by  an  unhurried  progression 
over  easy  water  routes,  made  settlements  at  Natchez; 
at  Natchitoches,  on  the  Red  River;  on  the  IMississippi, 
near  the  Arkansas ;  on  the  Yazoo ;  in  the  region  around 
Kaskaskia  and  Fort  Chartres  (five  villages  there)  ;  on 
the  Illinois  River  above  Lake  Peoria ;  at  Vincennes, 
and  near  the  Wabash-IMaumee  portage. 

In  all  these  years  they  suffered  but  one  serious 
attack  from  the  Indians,  though  many  small  ones  were 
endured.  On  November  29  (one  account  says  28), 
T729,  the  Natchez  arose  and  wiped  out  the  French  in- 
habitants and  garrison  at  the  village  of  Rosalie  that 
stood  where  Natchez  now  stands.    Five  men  escaped, 

113 


54  History  of  the 

and  two,  a  tailor  and  a  wagon  maker,  with  the  attrac- 
tive women,  and  the  children  were  kept  alive. 

Aided  by  the  Choctaws,  the  French  took  ample 
revenge,  and  Governor  Perier  wrote  on  August  i, 
1730,  concerning  some  of  the  red  prisoners  captured: 

"Laterly  I  have  burned  here  four  men  and  two 
women,  and  sent  the  rest  to  St.  Domingo." 

Charles  Gayarre,  the  New  Orleans  historian,  him- 
self a  Frenchman,  says  of  this  burning.  "It  was  not 
only  an  act  of  useless  cruelty,  but  of  exceedingly  bad 
policy.  *  *  *  It  must  have  looked,  in  the  estima- 
tion of  the  Indians,  as  an  approval  of  their  national 
custom.  *  *  *  But  what  is  remarkable  and  char- 
acteristic is  the  cool,  business-like  indifference,  and  the 
matter  of  fact  tone  with  which  Governor  Perier  in- 
forms his  government  of  the  auto-da-fe  which  has 
taken  place  by  his  orders." 

These  words  are  worth  remembering  because  they 
show  how  all  Southern  gentlemen  regard  such  atro- 
cities. There  is  a  very  great  difference  between  the 
Southern  gentlemen  and  the  upstarts,  (sons  of  former 
overseers,  in  many  cases),  who  describe  themselves  as 
"leading  citizens,"  and  are  found  heading  the  mobs 
that  burn  negroes  alive. 

On  November  15,  1731,  Law's  Mississippi  Com- 
pany took  final  leave  of  Louisiana  by  turning  the  coun- 
try over  to  the  King.  It  is  a  curious  fact  in  French 
history  that  this  company  continued  to  exist  long  after 
every  other  scheme  planned  by  Law  failed.  Being 
freed  from  the  grasp  of  private  monopoly  the  young 
city  was  now  able  to  open  free  commerce  with  the 
French  West  Indies  and  the  home  country.     By  the 

114 


Mississippi   Valley. 

labor  of  slaves  the  colonists  were  producing  indigo, 
rice,  tobacco  and  lumber  for  export.  The  tobacco  is 
worth  special  notice  because  at  a  point  fifty-five  miles 
above  New  Orleans  a  kind  of  tobacco  is  yet  produced, 
(400  pounds  to  the  acre,  at  that),  which  is  famous 
as  Louisiana  perique. 

And  yet  when  Bienville  left  Louisiana  in  1743, 
the  whole  province  had  a  population  of  only  4,000 
French  and  2,000  negroes,  and  but  for  the  supplies 
of  food  sent  down  the  river  from  the  Illinois,  New 
Orleans  would  have  been  starved  from  the  face  of  the 
map.  In  1730  Bienville  reported  that  for  three  months 
the  colonists  had  "subsisted  on  the  seeds  of  reeds  and 
wild  grass."  The  Marquis  de  Vaudreuil,  who  suc- 
ceeded Bienville,  "notified  his  home  government  in 
1744,  that  if  an  importation  of  flour  had  not  arrived 
he  could  not  have  controlled  his  famished  garrisou." 
(Winsor.) 

In  a  letter  by  Father  Vivier,  written  from  the 
Illinois  country,  November  17,  1750,  he  says,  "Wheat, 
as  a  rule  yields  only  from  five  to  eight  fold ;  but  it  must 
be  observed  that  the  lands  are  tilled  in  a  very  careless 
manner,  and  that  they  have  never  been  manured  dur- 
ing the  thirty  years  while  they  have  been  cultivated." 

Father  Gravier  describes  one  method  of  curing  the 
sick  which  he  practiced,  (Jesuit  Relations,  vol.  Ixv, 
p.  109)  : 

"A  small  piece  of  Father  Francois  Regis's  hat, 
which  one  of  our  servants  gave  me,  is  the  most  in- 
fallible remedy  that  I  know  of  for  curing  all  kinds  of 
fever." 

Said  Bienville  in  a  letter  written  on  April  15,  1735  : 
115 


A  History  of  the 

"I  neglect  nothing  to  turn  the  attention  of  the  in- 
habitants to  agricultural  pursuits,  but  in  general  they 
are  worthless,  lazy,  dissolute."  And  of  a  company  of 
soldiers  that  had  arrived  a  short  time  before  writing 
another  letter,  he  said : 

"There  are  but  one  or  two  men  among  them  whose 
size  is  above  five  feet ;  as  to  the  rest,  they  are  under  four 
feet  ten  inches.  With  regard  to  their  moral  character 
it  is  sufficient  to  state  that  out  of  fifty-two,  who  have 
lately  been  sent  here,  more  than  one-half  have  already 
been  whipped  for  larceny." 

During  the  summer  of  1754,  some  soldiers  of  a 
garrison  kept  on  Cat  Island,  when  exasperated  beyond 
endurance  by  the  cruelty  of  their  commander,  killed 
him,  and  started  through  the  woods  toward  South 
Carolina,  but  were  all  captured  by  Indians  sent  after 
them.  One  killed  himself.  Two  were  broken  upon  the 
wheel,  and  one,  who  was  a  Swiss  from  the  regiment 
of  Karrer,  was  placed  alive  in  a  wooden  cofiin,  and  by 
two  sergeants  sawed  in  two  with  a  whip  saw. 

Father  Etienne  de  Carheil  in  a  letter  regarding  the 
work  of  missionaries  at  French  forts  in  the  interior, 
(Jesuit  Relations,  vol.  Ixv)  says:  "These  [missions] 
are  reduced  to  such  an  extremity  that  we  can  no  longer 
maintain  them  against  an  infinite  multitude  of  evil 
acts — acts  of  brutality  and  violence;  of  injustice  and 
impiety;  of  lewd  and  shameless  conduct." 

As  a  final  view  of  those  Frenchmen  who  were  osten- 
sibly striving  to  make  a  great  colony  of  the  IMissis- 
sippi  valley,  take  this  from  the  "Present  State  of  the 
Country  and  Inhabitants,  Europeans  and  Indians,  of 
Louisiana,"  by  "An  Officer  of  New  Orleans  to  his 

116 


Mississippi   Valley. 

Friend  at  Paris,"  as  translated  and  printed  in  London 
in  1744,  (page  11  et  seq). 

"Every  one  studies  his  own  Profit ;  the  Poor  labour 
for  a  Week  and  squander  in  one  day  all  they  have 
earned  in  six ;  from  thence  arises  the  profit  of  the  Pub- 
lic Houses,  which  flourish  every  day.  The  Rich  spend 
their  time  in  seeing  their  slaves  work  to  improve  their 
land  and  get  money  which  they  spend  in  Plays,  Balls 
and  Feasts;  but  the  most  common  pastime  of  the 
highest  as  well  as  the  lowest,  and  even  of  the  slaves, 
is  Women;  so  that  if  there  are  500  women,  married 
or  unmarried  in  New  Orleans,  including  all  ranks,  I 
don't  believe,  without  exaggeration,  that  there  are  ten 
of  them  of  a  blameless  character;  as  for  me  I  know 
but  two  of  those,  and  even  they  are  privately  talked 
of.  What  I  say  of  New  Orleans  I  say  of  the  whole 
province  without  being  guilty  of  Slander  or  Calumny." 

"Laws  are  observed  here  much  in  the  same  man- 
ner as  in  France,  or  worse.  The  rich  man  knows  how 
to  procure  himself  Justice  of  the  Poor,  if  the  affair  is  to 
his  advantage;  but  if  the  poor  man  is  in  the  right  he  is 
obliged  to  enter  into  a  composition;  if  the  rich  is  in 
the  wrong  the  affair  is  stifled.  They  deal  fairly  with 
such  as  are  very  sharp  sighted.  As  the  King  is 
at  a  great  distance  they  make  him  provide  Victuals, 
Arms  and  Clothing  for  troops,  which  those  who  keep 
the  offices  or  magazines  sell  and  put  the  money  in  their 
own  pockets;  the  poor  soldier  for  whom  they  were 
designed  never  so  much  as  seeing  them." 

With  patient  persistence  and  unsurpassed  endurance 
the  austere  La  Salle  staked  the  trail  from  Montreal 
to  the  mouth  of  the  ^Mississippi.     Iberville,  a  hero  of 

117 


A  History  of  the 

the  French  Navy,  came  to  possess  the  land.  The 
populations  that  followed  were  composed  of  convicts, 
male  and  female ;  soldiers  "under  four  feet  ten  inches" 
in  body,  mind  and  morals;  colonists  whose  highest 
ambition  was  to  find  a  gold  mine,  and  whose  pastime 
among  the  "highest  as  well  as  the  lowest,  and  even  of 
Slaves,  is  women." 

The  Goths  and  Vandals  who  swarmed  through  the 
gates  of  degenerate  Rome  "did  not  come  a  day  too 
soon."  The  swelling  tide  from  the  British  colonies 
that  was  already  trickling  through  the  passes,  and  wash- 
ing around  the  ends  of  the  Alleghany  range,  had  some- 
thing in  it  as  harsh  and  bitter  as  the  brine  of  the  sea, 
but  it  was  to  descend  on  the  valley  of  the  great  river 
with  the  cleansing  power  of  the  flood  of  Noah. 


Ii8 


PHILIP,  ALIAS    MFTACOMF.  |-. 
From  the  original  engraving  by  Paul  Revere. 


VII 


THE  FRENCH  EXPELLED  FRO.M  THE  VALLEY. 
PART  L 

This  is  to  Tell  How  the  Corruption  of  the  French  Court 
Spread  Until  it  Blighted  French  Trade  Among  the 
American  Indians  and  How  the  French  Resorted  to 
Inhuman  Warfare  to  Retain  Their  Trade — Celeron's 
Expedition — The  Remarkable  Attitude  of  the  British 
Colonists  After  Celeron's  Warning — Work  of  the 
British  Traders  Brings  Another  French  Irruption — 
First  Gun  in  the  War  that  Ended  on  the  Plains  of 
Abraham. 

The  war  that  destroyed  the  French  power  in  the 
Mississippi  Valley  began,  strictly  speaking,  in  an  at- 
tack on  Indians,  (friendly  to  the  British),  who  lived 
on  the  banks  of  the  Scioto  river  in  the  present  state 
of  Ohio;  it  ended,  so  far  as  America  was  concerned, 

119 


A  History  of  the 

when  Wolfe  scaled  the  Heights  of  Abraham  at  Que- 
bec. But  this  war  was,  after  all  is  said,  only  an 
outbreak  of  a  chronic  state  of  conflict  that  had  grown 
out  of  the  earliest  efforts  of  the  British  to  extend 
their  "peaceful  commerce"  in  beaver  skins. 

To  understand  the  conditions  under  which  the 
British  colonists  drove  the  French  from  the  Mississippi 
Valley  it  is  necessary  to  consider  briefly  this  chronic 
state  of  conflict  growing  out  of  the  competition  for 
furs — especially  to  consider  what  the  French  did  in 
that  conflict  and  their  avowed  object  in  fighting. 

As  has  been  noted  already,  the  British  were  in  no 
degree  as  venturesome  as  the  French  in  the  fur  trade, 
but  the  British  trade,  especially  at  Albany,  grew  in 
spite  of  the  greater  enterprise  of  the  French  traders. 
In  fact  a  time  came  when  coureurs-de-bois  carried 
packs  of  furs  down  the  Mohawk  instead  of  down  the 
St.  Lawrence. 

The  reason  for  this  growth  of  trade  is  readily 
found.  The  British  undersold  the  French  merchants. 
As  one  French  merchant  said  in  a  letter  yet  preserved, 
the  Albany  traders  gave  a  silver  bracelet  for  two  beaver 
skins  where  the  French  trader  would  have  charged 
ten. 

This  difference  in  price  is  accounted  for  by  the 
enormous  burden  of  taxes  which  the  French  King 
laid  upon  his  people,  and  by  the  utter  dishonesty  of 
the  French  officials  in  America.  The  practices  of  the 
French  court,  so  graphically  described  by  Carlyle,  nec- 
essarily spread  through  all  the  French  domains.  "Mon- 
sieur the  Count  de  Maurepas  [the  "lightly  gyrating" 
Prime  JMinister]  is  right  when  he  says  that  the  officials 

I20 


Mississippi   Valley. 

in  Canada  are  looking  not  for  the  Western  sea  but 
for  the  sea  of  beaver,"  wrote  Father  Nau,  on  October 

2,  1735- 

To  preserve  their  fur  trade  in  spite  of  prices  that 
amounted  in  a  moral  point  of  view  to  sheer  robbery, 
the  French  resorted  to  inhuman  warfare.  They  set 
the  Indians  raiding  the  New  England  settlements. 
Said  Charlevoix  regarding  one  of  these  raids: 

"Monsieur  de  Vaudreuil  formed  a  party  of  these 
savages  to  whom  he  joined  some  Frenchmen  under 
the  direction  of  the  Sieur  de  Beaubassin,  when  they 
effected  some  ravages  of  no  great  consequence;  they 
killed,  however,  about  300  men."  To  this  he  adds 
the  very  significant  remark:  "The  essential  point  was 
to  commit  the  Abenakis  in  such  a  manner  that  they 
could  not  draw  hack." 

The  Abenakis,  and  the  Iroquois  converts  known 
as  the  Caughnawagas,  (in  the  Eighteenth  Century 
French  diplomacy  had  fully  established  priests  in  the 
Iroquois  villages),  were  sneaking  away  from  the 
shadow  of  the  altar  to  buy  goods  at  Albany;  and  the 
French  persuaded  them  to  raid  the  British  settlements 
in  New  England  on  the  theory  that  no  raider  would 
dare  to  go  to  a  British  town  to  trade.  Every  New 
England  settlement  within  reach  was  raided  by  order 
of  the  French,  and  French  officers  went  along  to  see 
that  the  raiding  was  thoroughly  done.  Women  were 
slaughtered,  parents  saw  the  brains  of  their  babes 
dashed  out  against  rock  or  tree,  prisoners  were  tor- 
tured in  ways  so  shocking  that  a  detailed  description 
cannot  now  be  printed ;  and  all  this  was  done  "to 
commit  the  Indians  in  such  fashion  that  they  would 

121 


A  History  of  the 

continue  to  buy  French  goods  at  prices  rendered  ex- 
cessive by  the  bald  steaHng  of  which  French  officials 
were  guilty." 

It  was  New  England  alone  that  suffered  from  the 
early  raids  for  the  preservation  of  the  French  trade. 
The  Caughnawaga  Iroquois,  (located  on  the  St.  Law- 
rence), could  not  be  trusted  to  raid  toward  Albany, 
because  their  relatives  lived  in  the  Mohawk  valley ;  and 
the  Abenakis  could  not  be  sent  there  alone  because  that 
would  rouse  the  resentment  of  all  the  Iroquois. 

In  consequence  of  this  freedom  from  raids,  New 
York's  population  spread  slowly  up  the  Mohawk. 
The  Lutheran  Palatines,  fleeing  from  religious  perse- 
cution in  Europe,  came  nearly  3,000  strong,  to  New 
York,  and  were  sent  by  the  wily  authorities  to  settle 
west  of  Schenectady,  because  they  would  serve  as  a  buf- 
fer in  case  of  French-Indian  invasion  over  the  route 
lying  west  of  the  Adirondacks.  Their  plantations  were 
extended  as  far  as  where  Rome  now  stands.  Some  of 
them  went  also  to  the  frontier  of  Pennsylvania  and 
Virginia. 

In  1727  Governor  Burnet,  of  New  York,  built  at 
his  own  expense  "a  stone  house  of  strength,"  where 
Oswego  now  stands,  in  order  to  fend  off  the  French. 
Here  a  lively  trade  was  established. 

The  French  fumed  over  the  advancing  settlements 
of  Englishmen,  but  instead  of  attacking  this  "house  of 
strength,"  they  built  a  trading  station  where  Toronto 
now  stands. 

Meantime,  (1726),  Joncaire,  a  Frenchman  hving 
among  the  Iroquois,  had  re-established  on  Niagara 
River  the  post  La  Salle  had  built,  while  in  1731  Fort 

122 


Mississippi   Valley. 

Frederick  was  built  at  Crown  Point,  on  Lake  Cham- 
plain.  Both  patriotism  and  private  greed  urged  the 
French  to  establish  new  posts;  for  by  so  doing  they 
hoped  to  wall  in  the  British,  and  they  knew  by  expe- 
rience that  every  post  was  a  source  of  wealth  to  its 
officers. 

During  all  the  early  years  of  the  Eighteenth  Cen- 
tury, while  British  settlers  and  stations  spread  west- 
ward through  New  York,  the  British  traders  of  Penn- 
sylvania, Virginia  and  the  Colonies  to  the  South,  had 
been  working  across  and  around  the  Alleghanies,  while 
their  stations  were  eventually  established  in  the  moun- 
tain passes,  and  beyond  them.  Col.  Thomas  Cresap, 
whom  Winsor  calls  "a  vagrant  Yorkshire  man,  then 
near  forty  years  old,"  built,  in  the  winter  of  1742-43, 
a  hunting  and  trading  cabin  near  the  upper  fork  of 
the  Potomac  in  the  extreme  west  part  of  what  is  now 
Maryland.  In  1745  a  British  trading  post  was  estab- 
lished on  Sandusky  Bay,  Lake  Erie,  near  the  site  of 
the  present  city  of  Sandusky,  Ohio,  and  as  many  as 
300  traders  are  said  to  have  gone  to  the  Ohio  country 
every  season  thereafter,  for  several  years.  If  anyone 
wishes  a  more  detailed  story  of  this  growth  of  colonial 
trade  it  can  be  found  in  Walton's  ''Conrad  Weiser." 

In  1748,  the  Ohio  company  was  organized  in  Vir- 
ginia for  trade  and  colonization  in  the  Ohio  Valley. 
They  applied  to  the  King  for  a  grant  of  500,000  acres 
in  that  valley,  (which  Virginia  claimed),  and  they 
received,  by  the  royal  order  of  May  19,  1749,  200,000, 
on  condition  that  they  settle  100  families  on  the  tract, 
each  year,  for  seven  years,  and  build  a  fort  to  protect 
them.     This  done  they  were  to  receive  an  additional 

123 


A  History  of  the 

300,000  acres.  This  company  did  a  little  memorable 
work.  They  contracted  with  Col.  Thomas  Cresap  "to 
lay  out  and  mark  a  road"  from  Will's  Creek,  (now 
Cumberland,  Md.),  to  the  forks  of  the  Ohio.  Cresap, 
with  the  aid  of  an  Indian  named  Nemacolin,  marked 
the  trees  along  an  old  trail  that  had  been  occasionally 
used  by  the  Indians,  and  created  a  path  fit  for  sure- 
footed pack  horses.  It  lay  not  far  from  the  route  of 
the  old  National  Road,  as  now  found  there. 

In  1736,  Col.  William  Mayo  from  a  head  spring  of 
the  Potomac  passed  over  to  the  head  of  a  tributary  of 
the  Monongahela  with  a  party  of  surveyors.  In  1748,- 
Dr.  Thomas  Walker,  "a  genuine  explorer  and  surveyor, 
a  man  of  mark,"  reached  the  Cumberland  River,  and 
in  1750,  passed  through  and  named  the  Cumberland 
Gap,  after  the  Duke  of  Cumberland. 

The  British  population  that  was  crowding  west- 
ward toward  the  Great  Lakes  and  swelling  to  the  crests 
of  the  Alleghanies,  occupied  a  territory  of  5 144 16 
square  miles,  (Census  Report  of  1850),  and  numbered 
1,160,000.  The  French  who  were  to  try  to  stop  the 
westward  movement  of  the  British,  numbered  no  more 
than  80,000,  and  they  claimed  in  addition  to  all  Canada, 
the  entire  Mississippi  Valley  with  its  area  of  1,217,562 
square  miles.  If  the  French  were  to  hold  their  claims, 
to  the  Mississippi  Valley,  they  needed  to  bestir  them- 
selves— and  that  they  did. 

But  before  telling  what  they  did  to  rivet  their 
claims  to  the  Great  Basin,  it  seems  worth  while  to  con- 
sider whether  the  British  ought  to  have  respected  the 
claim  of  the  French. 

The  French  claim  was  based  on  the  work  of  La 
124 


Mississippi    Valley. 

Salle  in  discovering  the  mouth  of  the  Mississippi, 
and  in  building  forts  within  the  watershed  of  the  Great 
River.  Under  the  law  and  practice  of  nations,  this 
certainly  gave  them  what  is  now  called  the  right  of  pre- 
emption to  the  whole  basin.  They  had  the  right  to 
establish  a  great  French  colony  there.  But  when  that 
much  is  conceded,  the  fact  remains  that  the  French 
nation  had  failed  to  do  anything  in  furtherance  of 
this  right — they  had  failed  to  colonize  the  region. 
The  widely  scattered  posts  that  had  been  established 
could  no  more  be  called  lasting  or  sufficient  "improve- 
ments on  the  claim,"  than  the  planting  of  an  apple 
seed  would  have  been,  in  recent  years,  sufficient  to  give 
an  American  settler  a  right  to  a  quarter  section  of  land 
in  Kansas  as  a  timber  claim.  The  Mississippi  Valley, 
with  its  capacity  to  support  200,000,000  people,  in  the 
middle  of  the  i8th  century  contained  less  than  7,000 
Frenchmen,  including  slaves;  and  more  than  half  of 
these  were  concentrated  around  New  Orleans.  The 
whole  region  was  an  unscarred  wilderness. 

Although  there  were  no  statutes  or  treaties  that 
covered  the  condition  of  affairs  in  the  Mississippi  Val- 
ley, the  French  law  governing  individual  settlers  at  the 
posts  is  a  strong  point  to  urge  against  the  French  claim 
to  the  whole  valley.  To  any  French  settler  of  good 
standing  in  the  church  the  King  would  concede  a 
reasonable  tract  of  land  on  condition  that  he  improve 
it  within  seven  years.  If  within  seven  years  he  failed 
to  improve  the  claim  to  the  satisfaction  of  the  com- 
mandant of  the  post,  the  land  could  be  taken  by  another. 
The  Mississippi  Valley,  in  the  middle  of  the  Eighteenth 
Century,  was  by  the  French  standard,  wild  land,  be- 

125 


A  History  of  the 

cause  they  had  not  made  the  proper  improvements; 
and  it  was  therefore  open  to  the  claims  of  whomso- 
ever would  improve  it. 

To  look  at  the  matter  in  another  point  of  view,  the 
French  were  trying  to  take  the  wild  region  for  a  vast 
game  preserve,  wherein  to  gather  furs,  while  the  Brit- 
ish were  trying  to  get  it  for  home  sites.  The  quarrel 
was  somwhat  like  that  between  actual  settlers  and  cat- 
tlemen on  the  wild  land  west  of  the  Mississippi  after 
our  Civil  war.  Exact  justice  always  gave  the  actual 
settler  his  claim  wherever  he  chose  to  stake  it. 

But  laying  aside  all  such  arguments  as  these  (al- 
though an  international  court  would  consider  them), 
there  is  one  more  point  to  be  made  for  the  British,  and 
it  is  one  that  is  decisive.    The  argument  is  as  follows : 
For  more  than  fifty  years  the  French,  in  order  to 
preserve  their  trade  with  the  Indians,  had  deliberately 
waged  an  inhuman  warfare  on  the  British  settlements 
that  were  within  convenient  reach  of  the  French  posts. 
In  due  time  they  determined  to  monopolize  the  trade 
of  the  Mississippi  Valley,  as  they  had  tried  to  monopo- 
lize that  of  the  St.  Lawrence.    To  do  that  they  began 
attacking  the  British  traders  found  west  of  the  Alle- 
ghanies,  and  then  they  established  forts  in  that  region. 
The  British  colonists  were  fully  justified  in  believing 
that  raiders  would  be  sent   from  the  French  posts  west 
of  the  Alleghanies  as  they  had  been  sent  from  the  posts 
on  the  St.  Lawrence. 

It  is  especially  important  to  note  that  the  raids 
against  New  England  were  not  made  to  preserve  Can- 
ada from  invasion ;  the  British  colonies  had  no  thought 
of  pushing  settlements  to  the  Canada  line  at  any  time 

126 


Mississippi   Valley. 

before  or  during  these  raids.  The  raids  were  made 
solely  to  protect  a  trade  that  in  a  moral  point  of  view 
was  robbery;  and  they  were  made  at  times  when  the 
French  and  British  kings  were  nominally  at  peace. 
Therefore  to  drive  the  French  from  the  region  west  of 
the  Alleghenies  was  an  act  of  self  defence.  Let  it  be 
repeated  for  the  sake  of  emphasis,  that  during  fifty 
years  the  French  had  relentlessly  pushed  their  inhuman 
warfare,  and  the  British  were  then  justified  in  sweep- 
ing such  neighbors  from  the  continent. 

With  his  sympathies  excited  by  the  magnificent 
achievements  of  La  Salle,  and  his  prejudices  aroused 
against  the  British  for  the  arrogance  and  oppression 
with  which  they  treated  the  United  States,  more  than 
one  American  writer  has  said  the  Mississippi  Valley 
was  rightfully  the  property  of  the  French,  and  that 
predatory  aggression  took  it  from  them.  But  it  is  not 
so.  For,  even  though  it  be  allowed  that  the  Great 
Basin  was  rightfully  French  land,  it  was  not  predatory 
aggression  that  took  it.  It  was  an  aggression  in  self 
defence. 

In  fact,  as  shall  appear,  the  French  shifted  the  war 
from  New  England  to  a  point  back  of  the  Alleghanies. 
They  made  an  attack  on  British  traders  who  were  in 
the  Ohio  country,  where  they  had  a  right  to  be  under 
the  treaty  last  made  by  the  two  nations  (Utrecht).  It 
shall  further  appear  that  when  the  British  colonies  ex- 
pressed a  fear  that  if  French  posts  were  established 
west  of  the  Alleghanies,  the  raiding  that  had  been  done 
in  New  England  would  be  continued  in  Pennsylvania 
and  Virginia,  the  fear  was  fully  justified.  The  truth  is 
that  in  the  state  of  civilization  then  prevailing  the  con- 

127 


A  History  of  the 

tinent  was  not  large  enough  to  hold  the  two  peoples, 
and  a  war  that  would  expel  or  subjugate  one  of  them 
was  unavoidable. 

In  a  larger  view  this  war  was  but  an  incident  in  a 
prolonged  conflict  between  rival  races  which  is  yet 
waged,  though  at  present  not  with  guns. 

The  first  French  move  into  the  Alleghany  region 
was  made  in  1749.  On  June  15  JMonsieur  Celoron  de 
Bienville  (commonly  called  Celoron  only),  left  La 
Chine  with  a  party  that  included  fourteen  officers, 
twenty  regular  soldiers,  180  Canadians,  a  band  of  In- 
dians, and  a  priest,  all  in  twenty-three  canoes.  Going 
to  the  mouth  of  the  creek  that  empties  into  Lake  Erie, 
near  W^estfield,  N.  Y.,  they  passed  over  to  Lake  Chau- 
tauqua, and  thence  to  the  Alleghany  river,  which  they 
reached  on  July  29.  There  Celoron  began  the  particu- 
lar work  of  his  mission.  Drawing  his  forces  up  in  lines 
he  buried  a  plate  of  lead  in  the  south  bank,  and  further 
down  the  stream  he  attached  the  royal  coat  of  arms 
(painted  on  tin),  to  a  tree.  After  that  was  done  a 
notary  public,  brought  for  the  purpose,  made  a  formal 
written  statement  of  what  had  been  done. 

The  lead  plate  was  inscribed  as  follows  (transla- 
tion by  Parkman)  : 

Year  1749,  in  the  Reign  of  Louis  Fifteenth,  King  of  France, 
We,  Celoron,  commanding  the  detachment  sent  by  the  Marquise 
de  la  Galissonniere,  commanding  general  of  New  France,  to 
restore  tranquility  in  certain  villages  of  these  cantons,  have  buried 
this  plate  at  the  confluence  of  the  Ohio  and  the  Kanaouagon 
(Conewango),  this  29th  July,  as  a  token  of  renewal  of  posses- 
sion heretofore  taken  of  the  aforesaid  River  Ohio,  of  all  streams 
that  fall  into  it,  and  all  lands  on  both  sides  to  the  source  of  the 
aforesaid  streams,  as  the  preceeding  Kings  of  France  have  en- 

128 


MAI'    UK    CKLOKON  S    EXPKUITION,    I749. 


Mississippi    Valley. 

joyed  or  ought  to  have  enjoyed  it,  and  which  they  have  upheld 
by  force  of  arms  and  by  treaties,  notably  those  of  Ryswick, 
Utrecht  and  Aix-la-Chapelle. 


LAN  I^^-^Qv  DV  ■RCCNE  DE  LOViS  XV  RO^  01;  ^..f.S: 
FRANCE /^  mivSCEuORON  ,  COMMANDANT  DVN  .viRE^vi^^!-;; 
TACHEHJf^N^.;-  ENVOIE  ■  PAJR  MONSIEVR  ;  -LE  J^^i^ibfi^  '  Cife- 
CALisSpjqiERE      -  COMMANDANT..'     GENERAL      D.Ev,  iiX-,-;-/  .■■ '     vt'^.' 

tjonEi^B?-''^rEXMc£.  ^■p'ovr  ■    feta;biJir^;   la    TRApviui^ 

DANS'  \;i^iM^i^>^  ^it;L A  C  E  S  y\^.S^ 

AVqjtS-'^WT^Rfe; .  '>C  ETT  E.  Vi/'PLArTVE'^  //iVHE:NT:fl.i5.gt,ftEyi^  '-^iM 

^^Hk^i-'miU^^AuicHE-ttiA'' i: fc  "tr  Aau ST :;■  .7: "    ' - ■^:'-^^  vji-^i^ ^;K^^ 

pre/''  iJDfi;.;:L,A^ '^■RiviERE  "  '^OY'O/:  aUTREMENT  '  BEfAit'^^ii^^ 
RiviER|:!^::;POVR";MONVHENji  -DV:  '  RENOVVELLEStiNT  .  DE|^^ 
POSSiSSf^U  i'  HVE  ^  N0V5?";:AV0NS  *:TRiS  s:'  DE  X^  ..  DITT^^ 
RiviERE'S;:6fY0  ET  DE  "  TOVTES,  CELLES  ;  3?^  Y  .TOK^BWr 
ET  DE  VrO:^E=S  ,  LES  TEJi^ES  I^ZS  r,,bE^K  -CfSgrES^S^VB^:- 
AVX  ,;50^iRCE5  ;DE5  oiTTES  RiviE/l  ^VlNSi  J^f^^l^^ 
ioVx'xOYF  DV  JOVIR  LES:-  PRECEDE ^TSlvgi^^  ^.^PE  f^ANCE  ■ 
3T    ,^yitS       SisONT     MAiNTENV/S.,:PAR,.lLEJ^^^^^^^^^  ■ii.>ETJ;ij. 

PAR     LESill- TRAIT TE^S       SPEC  lAI^EMENT  ^ JPAR^i't^^ 
RISVvicK'^'DVtRCHr      ET       DAIX'  LA   '   CHPe-CEE  "^V'X'^.  ^i:^^^^^^^^ 

^    ■•.;-^ ■:/:■:'   '^t;^*^^..^v\^^'-%;^ 


This  Shoves  the  Inscription  on  One  of  the  Two  Plates 
Which  Have  Been  Found. 

It  was  by  such  idle  displays  as  this  that  the  French 
then  expected  to  stop  the  onflow  of  British  settlers. 

Celoron  was  under  orders  to  expel  all  British  tra- 
ders that  he  might  find,  but  the  further  they  travelled 
down  the  river,  the  more  threatening  became  the  bear- 
ing of  the  Indians,  who  had  found  British  goods  better 
as  well  as  cheaper  than  those  supplied  by  the  French. 

On  reaching  the  Scioto  the  expedition  turned  north, 
and  at  the  mouth  of  the  Laramie  creek  had  a  talk  with 
a  chief  the  French  called  La  Demoiselle,  though  he 
was  known  to  the  British  traders  as  "Old  Britain," 
because  of  his  friendship  for  all  things  British.  Old 
Britain  accepted  the  presents  offered,  but  when  asked 

129 


A  History  of  the 

to  remove  his  people  to  their  former  dwelHng  place, 
near  a  French  post  on  the  Maumee  River,  he  said  he 
would  do  so  "at  a  more  convenient  time."  What  he 
did  do  was  to  increase  the  population  of  Pique  Town, 
or  Pickawillany,  as  his  village  was  called,  and  make 
it  a  stronghold  for  British  traders.  This  village  gave 
its  name  to  the  modern  town  of  Piqua,  Ohio,  which, 
however,  stands  some  distance  south  of  the  mouth  of 
Laramie  creek. 

At  the  head  of  the  Scioto,  Celoron  burned  his  ca- 
noes, and  marched  overland  to  the  Maumee,  whence 
he  returned  home  by  way  of  the  lakes.  He  had  accom- 
plished nothing  but  to  give  the  British  warning  that  the 
French  were  going  to  claim  everything  back  of  the 
Alleghany  mountains. 

In  view  of  this  warning,  the  attitude  of  the  British 
colonists  in  the  three  years  after  1749  was  most  re- 
markable. Not  only  did  they  ignore  the  threat  of 
French  occupation  of  the  lands  claimed  by  Virginia 
and  Pennsylvania;  they  even  neglected  the  Indians  on 
those  lands,  and  allowed  "the  chain  of  friendship  to 
rust;  and  then  to  break." 

Several  causes  united  to  create  this  singular  atti- 
tude. In  Pennsylvania  the  people  and  the  proprietors 
were  quarreling  over  the  expenses  incidental  to  Indian 
affairs.  The  assembly  wished  the  proprietors  to  bear 
part  of  the  expense  and  the  proprietors  refused.  It 
was  a  question  of  principle  rather  than  of  cash  appar- 
ently, for  the  Quakers,  who  refused  to  vote  money 
when  they  thought  the  proprietors  ought  to  give  it, 
were  always  ready  to  give  liberally,  and  their  time  also 
when  treaties  were  to  be  held  with  the  Indians. 

130 


Mississippi   Valley. 

In  other  colonies,  too,  the  people  were  too  busy 
with  a  growing  struggle  they  were  maintaining  against 
the  encroachments  of  their  governors,  to  give  adequate 
attention  to  either  the  Indians  or  the  French. 

Further  than  that  there  were  jealousies  between  the 
colonies,  while  the  French  were  one  people  with  a 
single  head,  and  a  single  purpose.  There  were  also 
divisions  among  the  Indians.  Time  had  been  when  the 
Iroquois  nation  controlled  all  the  Indians  of  the  Ohio 
region,  but  in  the  middle  of  the  Eighteenth  Century  the 
Delawares  were  asserting  independence  once  more,  and 
there  was  talk  of  making  an  alliance  of  the  tribes  in 
the  West  somewhat  similar  to  the  confederation  of  the 
Six  Nations.  Even  the  Iroquois  were  divided.  The 
Onondagas  were  selling  land  to  Pennsylvania  and  ig- 
noring the  Mohawks  altogether  in  the  transaction, 
while  the  Senecas,  the  most  warlike  of  the  six  tribes, 
having  a  natural  liking  for  the  aggressiveness  shown 
by  the  French  in  those  days,  were,  to  a  large  degree, 
won  over  to  the  French  interest. 

Nevertheless  the  British  traders  kept  the  grass 
out  of  the  trails  leading  to  the  Ohio  country.  More 
than  fifty  of  them  were  found  gathered  at  Old  Bri- 
tain's, on  more  than  one  occasion,  and  they  reached 
out  for  the  trade  of  the  Indians  living  with  the  French 
on  the  Wabash,  the  Maumee  and  at  Detroit.  This 
activity  stirred  the  French  to  make  an  advance,  in 
spite  of  the  failure  of  Celoron's  expedition.  Comman- 
dant Raymond,  commanding  the  post  on  the  Maumee, 
wrote,  (quoted  by  Parkman)  : 

"All  the  tribes  who  go  to  the  English  at  Picka- 
willany  come  back  loaded  with  gifts.     I  am  too  weak 

131 


A  History  of  the 

to  meet  the  danger.  Instead  of  twenty  men  I  need  500. 
*  *  *  If  the  Enghsh  stay  in  this  country  we  are  lost. 
We  must  attack  and  drive  them  out."  The  time  for 
something  more  than  an  idle  display  of  forms  had 
come. 

An  attempt  to  incite  the  Indians  about  Detroit  to 
go  on  a  raid  to  Old  Britain's  town  developed  the 
fact  that  they  were  "touched  with  disaffection."  But 
Charles  Langlade,  a  French  trader  at  Green  Bay,  came 
down  to  the  Maumee  with  250  "Christian  Ottawas  and 
Ojibwas,  and  passing  through  the  dense  forest,  reached 
Old  Britain's  town  at  9  o'clock  on  the  morning  of 
June  21,  1752.  The  stockade  gates  were  immediately 
closed  by  traders,  and  a  short  resistance  was  made, 
but  the  Green  Bay  Indians  triumphed.  Two  traders 
escaped.  One  who  was  wounded  was  murdered  after 
the  surrender.  The  Miamis  lost  fourteen  killed  and 
among  these  was  Old  Britain.  And  him  the  "Christ- 
ian" Green  Bay  Indians  boiled  and  ate,  while  the 
French  looked  on  without  protest,  if  not  with  entire 
approval. 

The  Marquis  Duquesne  de  Menneville  had  just 
become  governor  of  Canada  when  the  report  of  Lang- 
lade's victory  reached  the  St.  Lawrence.  In  spite  of 
the  terms  of  the  Treaty  of  Utrecht  he  asked  the  min- 
ister to  pension  Langlade. 

The  first  gun  in  the  war  that  ended  on  the  Plains 
of  Abraham  was  fired,  with  the  full  approval  of  the 
French  authorities,  by  Charles  Langlade  on  the  banks 
of  the  Scioto. 


132 


GEORGE    WASH1^GTU.^•. 

This  portrait  was  presented  by  Washington  to  his  niece  in  1757, 

when  he  was  twenty-five  years  of  age.     Braddock's  defeat 

was  in  1755,  and  the  surrender  of  Fort  Duquesne  in  1758. 


VIII 


THE  FRENCH  EXPELLED  FROM  THE  VALLEY. 
PART  n. 

When  the  French,  with  Their  Silks  and  Velvets,  Came 
to  the  "Belle  Riviere" — Washington's  Journey  into 
the  Wilderness — Virginia's  Efforts  to  Repel  the 
French — Washington's  First  Battle — The  Power 
of  Madam  de  Pompadour — The  Story  of  Braddock's 
Expedition — The  French  King  Approved  Indian 
Raids  on  the  Home-Makers — It  Was  in  Accordance 
with  an  Inexorable  Law  of  Nature  that  the  Man 
with  an  Axe  Should  Supplant  the  Vagabond  with  a 
Sword. 

To  follow  up  the  successful  work  of  Langlade  on 
the  Scioto,  Gov.  Duquesne,  of  Canada,  determined  to 
occupy  all  the  passes  of  the  Alleghanies,  and  support 
them  by  building  a  strong  fort  at  the  forks  of  the  Ohio. 
In  this  plan,  contrary  to  the  usual  condition  of  affairs  in 

133 


A  History  of  the 

Canada,  the  Governor  was  heartily  supported  by  the 
Intendant,  Francois  Bigot.  To  estabhsh  new  posts  was 
to  give  new  opportunities  for  enriching  himself  to  the 
Intendant,  and  Bigot  was  an  official  with  whom  for- 
gery and  perjury,  for  the  concealment  of  theft,  were 
common  acts. 

To  further  show  the  character  of  the  Canadian  of- 
ficials it  must  be  said  that  Governor  Duquesne  appoint- 
ed Pierre  Paul,  Sieur  de  Marin,  (described  as  a  gruff, 
choleric  old  man  of  sixty-three,  but  full  of  force  and 
capacity),  to  lead  the  new  expedition  to  the  Allegha- 
nies  because  of  the  charms  of  IMadam  Marin,  who  was 
much  younger.  At  the  request  of  Intendant  Bigot  the 
Chevalier  Pean  was  made  second  in  command,  and 
Bigot  made  the  request  because  Madam  Pean  was 
young  and  charming. 

In  the  fall  of  1752,  Marin,  with  250  men,  went  to 
the  bay  where  Erie,  Pennsylvania,  now  stands,  and 
built  a  fort  of  chestnut  logs  to  guard  the  harbor.  A 
road  over  a  newly-discovered  portage  was  then  cut  to 
where  Waterford,  Pennsylvania,  now  stands  on  French 
creek,  a  distance  of  twenty-one  miles.  Here  they  built 
a  fort  and  named  it  Le  Boeuf. 

Over  this  route  they  carried  their  baggage  consist- 
ing of  "velvets,  silks  and  other  costly  articles  sold  to 
the  king  at  enormous  prices  as  necessaries  of  the  ex- 
pedition," and  then  the  force  sat  down  for  the  winter. 

It  was  not  until  the  next  spring,  when  reinforce- 
ments were  sent  up  the  lakes  to  this  new  post,  that  the 
English  heard  of  the  new  movement.  On  May  15, 
1753,  Capt.  Benjamin  Stoddart  wrote  from  Oswego 
to  Col.  Johnson  saying :  "Yesterday  passed  here  thirty 

134 


Mississippi   Valley. 

odd  French  canoes,  part  of  an  army  going  to  Belle 
Riviere,  to  make  good  their  claim  there."  He  thought 
the  whole  army  numbered  6,000.  There  were  near 
1,500  all  told. 

When  the  reinforcements  reached  Le  Boeuf  they 
fortified  the  trail  and  spent  so  much  time  in  useless 
work  that  they  did  not  reach  and  fortify  the  site  of 
Venango,  (on  the  way  to  the  forks  of  the  Ohio),  until 
August.  Meantime  sickness  had  appeared  among  the 
loitering  throng,  and  so  many  of  them  died,  (including 
Marin),  that  the  project  of  going  to  the  forks  that  year 
was  abandoned. 

This  irruption  of  the  French  pleased  the  Indians, 
as  a  whole,  in  spite  of  their  previous  regard  for  the 
British  traders.  The  British  colonial  officials  had  ne- 
glected them.  The  neglect  offended  them.  The 
French  came  with  a  threat  of  war  in  one  hand  and 
many  presents  as  a  reward  for  help  in  the  other,  and 
the  Indians,  having  the  character  of  children,  grasped 
eagerly  at  the  presents.  The  old  Iroquois  chief  Half- 
King  went  to  Marin  with  a  protest,  but  Iroquois,  Dela- 
wares  and  Shawnees  helped  the  French  carry  their 
goods,  (more  "velvets,  silks  and  other  useless  and 
costly  articles"),  over  the  portage,  and  even  the  Mi- 
amis  came  with  the  scalps  of  two  British  traders. 
The  memory  of  Old  Britain,  boiled  and  eaten,  was 
gone.  Pottawattamies  and  Ojibways  also  came  from 
the  West  as  a  part  of  the  French  force. 

In  spite  of  this  ominous  condition  of  affairs  but 
one  man  in  the  British  colonies  did  anything  to  avert 
the  danger.  Governor  Robert  Dinwiddle,  of  Virginia, 
wrote  a  letter  of  inquiry  and  protest  to  the  commander 

135 


A  History  of  the 

of  the  French  forces,  (for  Virginia  claimed  all  the 
Ohio  region  under  her  charter),  and  sent  it  by  the 
Adjutant  General  of  the  Virginia  militia,  George 
Washington,  then  twenty-one  years  old,  to  the  French. 
Christopher  Gist,  who  had  been  prospecting  the  Ohio 
country  in  the  interests  of  the  Virginia  land  specula- 
tors called  the  Ohio  Company,  went  along  as  guide. 

The  story  of  this  journey  into  the  wilderness — 
Washington's  first  notable  public  service — is  told  in 
his  journal  and  has  been  so  often  retold  that  it  need 
not  be  repeated  here  in  detail.  At  Venango  Wash- 
ington was  received  with  every  form  of  civility.  He 
noted  that  at  dinner  wine  was  served  in  abundance, 
and  that  the  French  officers,  (the  notable  Joncaire  was 
in  command),  drank  enough  to  loosen  their  tongues. 

"They  told  me  it  was  their  absolute  design  to  take 
possession  of  the  Ohio,  and  by  G —  they  would  do  it," 
writes  Washington.  They  said  also  that  the  British 
colonies  were  too  slow  in  making  retaliatory  move- 
ments to  stop  the  French.  And  in  this  statement  the 
French  were  very  nearly  but  not  quite  correct. 

Washington  went  on  to  headquarters  at  Le  Boeuf, 
and  delivered  (December  ii,  1753),  his  message.  He 
found  Legardeur  de  St.  Pierre  in  command.  Le- 
gardeur  replied,  "I  do  not  think  myself  obliged  to 
obey"  your  summons  to  leave  the  country. 

Nevertheless  Washington  accomplished  the  chief 
object  of  his  journey.  He  learned  the  French  plans, 
and  he  brought  back  a  statement  of  the  number  of 
French  in  the  Ohio  water  shed,  and  the  number  of 
canoes  built  and  building  for  use  in  the  next  forward 
movement.     He  also  noted  that  in  the  forks  of  the 

136 


Mississippi    Valley. 

Ohio  the  land  lay  well  for  the  site  of  a  fort.  He  reached 
home  in  January,  1754. 

In  the  meantime  a  letter  was  received  from  the 
British  King  commanding  Dinwiddie  *'to  drive  them 
(the  French)  off  by  force  of  arms."  To  obey,  how- 
ever, was  to  prove  a  hard  task.  For,  first  of  all,  the 
colonists  were  not  greatly  interested  in  the  matter. 
Even  some  Virginians  argued  that  the  Great  Valley 
really  belonged  to  the  French,  while  others  believed 
the  anxiety  of  Dinwiddie  to  drive  off  the  French  was 
due  to  his  interest  in  the  Ohio  Company  that  pur- 
posed settling  lands  on  the  Ohio  river.  In  fact  in  all 
the  Colonies  the  one  man  in  official  position  who  would 
make  a  definite  move  to  stop  the  French  advance  to 
the  forks  of  the  Ohio  was  Governor  Dinwiddie.  But 
for  him  the  French  would  have  established  themselves 
where  Pittsburg  now  stands  without  any  opposition 
other  than  written  words.  And  once  they  had  been 
thus  established  who  can  say  when  or  how  they  would 
have  been  routed  out?  It  was  fortunate  for  the  fu- 
ture of  the  Mississippi  valley  that  Dinwiddie  "had 
enthusiasm,  persistence,  and  a  hatred  of  the  French." 

By  thorough,  enthusiastic  and  persistent  effort, 
Dinwiddie  persuaded  his  legislature  to  offer  200,000 
acres  of  land  west  of  the  Alleghanies  to  any  men  who 
would  fight  to  perfect  the  title  to  it.  The  legislature 
also  voted  10,000  pounds  for  the  purpose  of  perfect- 
ing that  title.  Meantime  Dinwiddie  raised  300  militia 
— "raw  recruits."  Joshua  Fry,  "bred  at  Oxford,"  was 
made  Colonel,  Washington  was  promoted  to  the  rank 
of  Lieutenant  Colonel,  and  with  half  the  force  was  sent 
forward  to  Will's  creek,  an  upper  branch  of  the  Po- 

137 


A  History  of  the 

tomac,  (Cumberland,  Maryland).  William  Trent,  a 
trader,  with  a  gang  of  backwoodsmen,  was  w4th  Wash- 
ington, and  when  Washington  stopped,  under  orders, 
at  Will's  creek  to  build  storehouses  for  a  base  of  sup- 
plies, Trent's  men  went  on  to  the  forks  of  the  Ohio 
and  began  to  erect  a  fort  on  the  point  between  the 
rivers.  Here  the  command  devolved  upon  Ensign 
Ward,  who  began  work  on  the  fort  on  an  unnamed 
day,  early  in  April,  1754. 

Dinwiddle  had  hastened  forward  this  force  because 
he  believed  the  French  would  come  down  from  Ven- 
ango, early  that  spring,  and  his  belief  proved  well 
founded,  for  on  April  17,  six  flat  boats,  carrying  eight- 
een cannon,  and  300  canoes,  came  down  the  Allegha- 
ny river,  bearing  500  Frenchmen  under  Captain  Claude 
Pecaudy  de  Contrecoeur. 

Ward,  having  but  forty  men,  and  an  unfinished 
fort  for  shelter,  was  obliged  to  leave.  The  French 
then  completed  the  fort,  (it  was  120x150  feet  large), 
and  armed  it  with  "six  pieces  of  cannon  of  six,  nine 
of  two,  and  three  pound  ball."  They  named  the  fort 
Duquesne. 

The  station  that  Washington  was  building  on  Will's 
creek  was  140  miles  from  Fort  Duquesne,  by  the  usual 
trail.  At  the  mouth  of  Redstone  creek,  (a  branch  of 
the  Monongahela ) ,  a  point  that  was  half  way  between 
Will's  creek  and  Duquesne,  the  Ohio  Company  had 
built  a  stone  house.  Dinwiddle,  on  hearing  of  the 
French  arrival  at  the  forks  of  the  Ohio,  ordered  his 
forces  forward  to  the  stone  house  on  Redstone  creek, 
and  Washington  at  once  began  to  cut  out  the  Old  In- 
dian trail  that  had  been  marked  by  the  Ohio  Com- 

138 


Mississippi   Valley. 

pany,  and  made  a  wagon  road  of  it.  And  this  "was 
really  the  first  wagon  road  into  the  Great  Valley  from 
the  Atlantic  slope."  Traces  of  this  old  trail  can  still 
be  found  though  it  was  abandoned  in  1818,  when  the 
National  Road  was  constructed. 

Late  in  May,  Washington  reached  a  natural  open- 
ing in  the  woods  in  the  valley  of  the  Youghiogany, 
known  as  the  Great  Meadows,  and  there  he  cleared 
away  the  brush  in  front  of  a  small  ravine,  which  he 
turned  into  a  fortification.  Meantime,  the  French  had 
sent  out  thirty-three  men  under  Ensign  Coulon  de  Ju- 
monville,  to  attack  Washington.  But,  finding  his  force 
too  small.  Jumonville  hid  in  a  dense  wooded  ravine  to 
await  reinforcements.  While  the  French  lay  hid, 
Washington  learned  from  his  old  guide,  Gist,  that  the 
party  was  out,  and  determined  to  defend  himself  by  at- 
tacking them.  The  Iroquois  Half-King  and  others  of 
his  tribe  guided  Washington  to  the  ravine  on  May  28, 
1754.  The  French  were  surprised  in  their  camp.  They 
jumped  to  get  their  guns,  and  Washington  ordered 
his  men  to  fire.  Jumonville  and  nine  Frenchmen  were 
killed,  (which  shows  the  accuracy  of  the  British- 
American  aim,  even  though  Half-King  did  claim  that 
his  Indians  did  most  of  the  killing),  and  twenty-two 
were  captured.    One  Canadian  escaped  by  running. 

The  French  who  for  more  than  fifty  years  had  been 
raiding  the  back  settlements  of  the  British  colonies, 
slaughtering  women  and  babies  whom  they  dragged 
from  their  beds  at  night — these  Frenchmen  called,  and 
yet  call,  the  killing  of  Jumonville  an  assassination, 
They  wrote  the  tale  in  verse,  and  they  screamed  it  into 
all  the  courts  of  Europe. 

139 


A  History  of  the 

Washington  returned  to  his  camp  at  the  Great 
Meadows,  after  the  attack  on  Jumonville,  and  made 
an  entrenchment  which  he  named  Fort  Necessity.  It 
was  on  a  small  branch  of  the  Youghiogany,  in  Fayette 
county,  Pa.,  four  miles  east  of  Laurel  Hill,  and  300 
yards  south  of  the  old  National  Road.  Here  some  re- 
inforcements joined  him,  and  here  Washington  learned 
that  he  was  in  supreme  command,  (  though  but  twenty- 
two  years  old),  through  the  death  of  Col.  Fry. 

On  July  I,  1754,  Washington  was  attacked  by  700 
Frenchmen  and  an  uncounted  number  of  Indians,  un- 
der the  command  of  Coulon  de  Villiers,  a  brother  of 
Coulon  de  Jumonville.  Villiers  had  come  from  Canada 
especially  to  avenge  the  ''assassination"  of  his  brother. 
To  defend  his  fort,  Washington  had  350  men. 

The  French,  sheltered  by  forest  trees  standing  from 
sixty  to  100  yards  from  the  fort,  opened  fire  at  11 
o'clock  in  the  morning  and  for  nine  hours  they  worked 
their  guns  with  "zeal  and  ardor."  At  the  end  of  that 
time  "the  detachment  was  tired  and  the  Indians  sent 
me  word  that  they  would  depart  next  day,"  as  Villiers 
reported.  Moreover,  the  French  ammunition  was  al- 
most exhausted.     The  attack  had  failed. 

But  what  he  could  not  get  by  force  of  arms,  Vil- 
liers obtained  by  finesse.  "A  cessation  of  arms  was 
proposed  to  the  English,"  and  when  the  cessation  had 
been  accepted,  Washington  sent  his  Dutch-French  in- 
terpreter, Van  Braam,  to  learn  what  the  French  would 
propose. 

It  was  now  that  French  finesse  succeeded.  The 
French  proposed  that  the  English  march  out  with 
colors  flying  and  drums  beating,  and  take  a  swivel  with 

140 


Mississippi    Valley. 

them.  The  French  were  to  have  back  the  prisoners 
taken  when  Jumonville  was  killed,  and  Washington 
was  to  give  two  hostages  for  the  fulfillment  of  this 
condition. 

This  proposal  Washington  accepted,  for  he  was 
in  straits  for  food  and  ammunition  and  he  signed  a 
paper  which  purported  to  contain  those  conditions 
and  nothing  else.  But  the  finesse  of  the  French  had 
gone  still  further.  Taking  advantage  of  the  ignorance 
of  Van  Braam,  Capt.  Villiers  had  scrawled  the  con- 
ditions in  a  well-nigh  illegible  hand,  and  had  inser- 
ted therein  an  acknowledgment  that  Jumonville  had 
been  assassinated  in  the  previous  fight.  This  paper  was 
wet  and  badly  blotted,  as  well  as  badly  written.  When 
he  had  written  it,  Villiers  read  it  over  to  Van  Braam, 
and  there  is  every  reason  to  believe  that  in  so  reading 
it,  Villiers  used  the  words  "death  of  Jumonville,"  in- 
stead of  "assassination  of  Jumonville."  For  Major 
Adam  Stephen  (second  to  Washington),  in  describing 
the  paper  says :  "No  person  could  read  them  [the  words 
of  the  articles  of  capitulation] ,  but  Van  Braam,  zuho 
had  heard  them  from  the  month  of  the  French  officer." 

This  acknowledgment,  which  was  in  effect  a  for- 
gery, was  published  and  screamed  throughout  all 
Europe,  and  the  French  to  this  day  believe  the  forged 
statement. 

In  the  face  of  the  dangers  which  threatened  them, 
now  that  the  French  were  fully  seated  at  the  forks 
of  the  Ohio,  the  citizens  of  seven  colonies  sent  dele- 
gates to  a  Congress  which  met  at  Albany,  and  appointed 
a  committee  to  consider  the  trouble  further.  They 
were  still  unable  to  agree  to  do  any  real  work. 

141 


A  History  of  the 

In  Europe,  the  matter  received  more  practical  con- 
sideration. The  reader  who  would  like  to  learn  what 
was  done  in  Europe,  in  connection  with  this  war,  is 
advised  to  read  Carlyle's  "Frederick  the  Great,"  first  of 
all.  For  the  war  that  followed  between  France  and 
England  was  a  part  of  the  great  "Seven  Years  War," 
that  is  so  fully  treated  in  Carlyle's  "Frederick."  And 
Carlyle  is  one  of  the  two  British  writers  of  the  Nine- 
teenth Century  whose  works  are  all  worth  oft-repeated 
readings. 

The  British  King  ordered  two  regiments  of  red- 
coated  regulars  (500  men  each)  to  sail  for  Virginia, 
under  command  of  "our  trusty  and  well-beloved  Ed- 
ward Braddock,"  whose  instructions  were  dated  No- 
vember 25,  1754.     These  soldiers  sailed  in  January, 

1755- 

On  hearing  of  this  move  the  French  government 

ordered  3,000  men  to  Canada  under  Baron  Dieskau. 
But  as  the  Rev.  Mr.  Parkman  says,  "In  France  the 
true  ruler  was  Madam  de  Pompadour,  once  the  King's 
mistress,  now  his  procuress,  and  a  sort  of  feminine 
prime  minister."  Men  were  appointed  to  office  for 
pleasing  her,  regardless  of  their  lack  of  other  abilities, 
and  Dieskau  did  not  sail  until  May  3,  1755.  Thus 
the  British  had  time  to  learn  all  about  the  expedition, 
and  to  send  a  squadron  to  intercept  it. 

Braddock  arrived  at  Hampton,  Va.,  on  February 
20,  1755,  and  an  intercolonial  conference  was  convened 
on  April  14,  at  Alexandria,  where  the  two  regiments 
were  encamped.  Here  attacks  were  planned  on 
Acadia,  Crown  Point,  Niagara  and  Fort  Duquesne. 
Braddock,  with  his  two  regiments  of  regulars,  chose 

142 


KREUEKICK    THE    GREAT. 
From  the  engraving  in  the  Encyclopedia  Londinensis. 


Mississippi    Valley. 

to  lead  the  force  against  Fort  Duquesne.  He  reached 
Will's  Creek  on  May  lo.  Washington,  with  some 
hundreds  of  Colonial  militia,  had  been  at  work 
there  during  the  preceding  winter,  and  had  built  Fort 
Cumberland  where  Will's  Creek  entered  the  Potomac, 
(Cumberland,  Md.).  A  month  later,  June  lo,  the 
force  moved  forward  with  three  hundred  axemen,  cut- 
ting a  road  twelve  feet  wide  ahead  of  all.  There  were 
about  1,200  soldiers  in  the  command,  besides  officers, 
teamsters  and  workmen.  The  line  stretched  out  to  a 
length  of  four  miles — "a  thin,  long,  party-colored 
snake,  red,  blue  and  brown,  trailing  through  the  depth 
of  leaves."  They  were  able  to  advance  but  a  trifle 
more  than  three  miles  a  day. 

On  July  7,  Braddock  with  eighty-six  officers  and 
1373  men  reached  Turtle  creek,  (eight  miles  from  Fort 
Duquesne),  having  decided  to  leave  his  heavy  baggage 
under  a  guard  in  order  to  advance  more  rapidly  with 
a  fighting  force.  Here  he  crossed  to  the  southerly 
side  of  the  Monongahela,  continued  down  stream,  and 
on  the  9th  crossed  back  again  by  a  ford  that  lay  near 
the  dam  at  the  present  village  of  Braddock,  Pa. 

At  this  time  Contrecoeur  commanded  Ft.  Duquesne, 
with  a  force  of  something  over  250  white  men  and 
nearly  800  Indians.  The  approach  of  Braddock  had 
created  not  a  little  excitement  in  the  fort,  and  there 
were  two  British  Colonials  there,  (James  Smith  and 
Robert  Strobo),  to  take  note  of  what  was  done.  The 
Indians  at  first  refused  to  fight  the  British,  but  when 
they  had  seen  how  the  red  coats  marched  in  close  order, 
and  that  it  would  be  possible  to  shoot  them  "like 
pigeons,"  as  one  said  to  Smith,  they  decided  to  try  it. 

143 


A  Hist  cry  of  the 

Accordingly,  when  Capt.  Daniel  Lienard  de  Beaujeu 
was  placed  in  command  of  the  regulars  and  Canadians, 
on  the  9th,  with  orders  to  ambush  Braddock  at  the  ford 
of  the  Monongahela,  the  Indians  raised  the  war  whoop. 

Barrels  of  gun  powder,  bullets  and  flints,  were 
opened  at  the  fort  gate,  and  the  Indians  helped  them- 
selves. Beaujeu  dressed  himself  like  an  Indian,  (a 
common  habit  of  the  French  at  the  time),  and  with 
108  officers  and  regulars,  146  Canadians,  and  642  In- 
dians, (one  account  says  637),  he  started  at  8  o'clock 
for  the  ford.  It  appears,  however,  that  they  were  in  no 
haste  to  reach  the  ford.  A  man  could  walk  the  dis- 
tance in  two  hours,  but  Braddock  crossed  unmolested 
at  I  o'clock.  Even  when  the  British  sat  down  and 
ate  a  luncheon  no  attack  was  made..  But  when  Brad- 
dock's  advance  guard  had  passed  a  ravine  in  the  hills 
a  mile  from  the  ford,  they  met  a  man  ''dressed  like 
an  Indian,  but  wearing  a  gorget  of  an  officer."  This 
man — Beaujeu,  no  doubt — stopped  at  sight  of  the  Brit- 
ish, gave  an  Indian  war  whoop,  waved  his  hat  and 
jumped  for  a  tree.  The  French  regulars,  Canadians 
and  Indians  were  then  seen  coming  behind  him.  The 
greater  part  of  the  Canadians  fled  crying,  "Sauve  qui 
pent"  but  the  regulars  and  Indians  "treed"  themselves, 
and  stood  still  while  the  British  advance  guard  fired 
three  almost  harmless  volleys  into  the  tree  trunks — al- 
most harmless,  but  not  quite,  for  Beaujeu  was  killed 
by  the  third. 

Then  the  French  and  Indians  began  to  shoot  from 
their  safe  shelters;  and  the  range  was  short.  No 
braver  regular  troops  than  those  red  coats  had  ever 
marched  into  such  a  battle,  but  their  bravery  was  their 

144 


BETWEEN    WILLS' CREEK  £^  MONONGAHELA  R IVER, 


THE    liRAUDUClC    CAMPAIGN. 


fl3Vlfl/\J3HA3MOMOM^   >f33n:5  ^t 


Mississipp  i   V  alley. 

destruction.  They  stood  in  place  in  solid  masses,  scorn- 
ing shelter,  and  fired  back — uselessly  as  before.  But 
a  time  soon  came  when  flesh  and  blood  could  not 
stand  the  unseen  death  that  pelted  them  from  the  brush, 
and  they  gave  way  just  as  Braddock  arrived  to  support 
them  with  the  main  part  of  his  force,  shouting,  "God 
save  the  King." 

The  fresh  troops,  on  meeting  the  retiring  vanguard, 
were  thrown  into  some  confusion,  but  were  rallied  by 
their  officers,  and  formed  into  solid  masses ;  and  there, 
with  few  exceptions,  they  stood,  facing  the  lead-laden 
storm,  and  firing  back  exactly  according  to  the  manual. 

The  Virginians,  almost  to  a  man,  took  to  the  trees 
like  Indians.  Braddock,  with  vigorous  British  pro- 
fanity, ordered  them  back  into  line,  and  even  killed 
one  of  them,  it  is  said,  with  his  sword,  (see  Gordon's 
"Pennsylvania").  A  few  of  the  red  coats,  who  also 
sought  shelter  were  beaten  back  into  line  or  killed  by 
the  exasperated  general.  No  flinching  would  be  per- 
mitted by  this  commander.  He  crowded  them  to- 
gether until  they  were  as  close  together  as  wild  pigeons 
on  a  roost,  and  they  were  slaughtered  like  the  pigeons, 
as  the  Indians  had  foreseen.  It  was  an  army  of 
disciplined  Englishmen,  Irishmen  and  Scotchmen.  As 
firmly  as  their  native  islands,  they  withstood  the  storm 
until  half  their  number  were  down — "stood  panting, 
their  foreheads  beaded  with  sweat,  loading  and  firing 
mechanically," — and  then  they  broke  and  fled.  A  mo- 
ment later  Braddock  fell,  shot  through  the  lungs — 
"bleeding,  gasping,  unable  even  to  curse."  He  was 
shot  down  by  Thomas  Fawcett,  whose  brother  Brad- 
dock had  cut  down  for  seeking  a  tree,  says  Gordon. 

145 


'A  History  of  the 

The  retreat  at  once  became  a  panic,  but  Washing- 
ton, with  his  sheltered  Virginians,  covered  the  flight, 
and  the  Indians  turned  from  slaughter  to  the  gather- 
ing of  plunder,  and  finally  went  back  to  Fort  Duquesne, 
"driving  before  them  twelve  British  regulars,  stripped 
naked,  and  with  their  faces  painted  black."  They 
were  to  be  burned. 

Said  James  Smith  who,  from  within  Ft.  Duquesne, 
saw  the  victorious  mob  return :  "The  savages  appeared 
frantic  with  joy,  dancing,  yelling,  brandishing  their 
red  tomahawks  and  waving  scalps  in  the  air,  while  the 
great  guns  of  the  fort  replied  to  the  incessant  discharge 
of  the  rifles  without.  The  most  melancholy  spectacle 
was  the  band  of  prisoners.  They  appeared  dejected  and 
anxious.  They  were  led  to  the  banks  of  the  Alleghany" 
and  there  each  was  "tied  to  a  stake  with  his  hands 
above  his  head,"  and  then  they  were  "burned  to  death." 
The  Frenchmen  made  no  efforts  to  prevent  these  tor- 
tures. There  is  every  reason  to  suppose  that  the  French 
approved  them.  The  French  had,  on  several  occasions, 
burned  Indians  to  death,  and  the  instances  where  any 
Frenchman  actually  interfered  in  behalf  of  a  British 
prisoner  are  so  rare  that  one  is  fully  justified  in  be- 
lieving that  the  tortures  at  Fort  Duquesne  had  their 
full  approval. 

It  seems  proper,  therefore,  to  call  attention  to  the 
fact  that  in  all  the  wars  between  the  British  Colonies 
and  the  Indians,  and  between  the  United  States  and  the 
Indians,  no  captured  Frenchman  was  ever  burned  to 
death,  nor  was  any  captured  Indian.  Our  people  saw 
their  wives  and  children  outraged,  murdered  and  tor- 
tured by  the  Indians,  but  there  was  never  a  case  where 

146 


Mississippi    Valley. 

our  men  so  degraded  themselves  as  to  burn  to  death 
one  of  the  inferior  race  in  retahation.  One  may  re- 
member this  with  some  satisfaction,  even  in  the  midst 
of  the  unspeakable  humiliation  which  has  been  brought 
upon  our  nation  by  the  burning  of  members  of  an  in- 
ferior race  during  recent  years. 

Braddock's  wound  was  mortal.  He  had  faced  the 
enemy  he  justly  despised  with  vigorous,  voluble  energy 
and  courage;  for  four  days  he  faced  death  with  silent 
resolution.  Once,  as  he  recalled  the  rules  his  teachers 
had  given  him,  he  said  aloud,  "Who  would  have 
thought?"  And  then  at  8  o'clock  in  the  evening  of 
Sunday,  July  13,  having  seen,  at  least,  that  tactics  in 
war,  as  in  all  other  matters,  must  be  adapted  to  the 
circumstances,  he  said,  "We  shall  know  better  how 
to  deal  with  them  another  time,"  and  then  died. 

Out  of  eighty-six  officers  in  the  British  force,  sixty- 
three  were  killed,  Washington  had  two  horses  shot 
under  him,  and  several  bullets  pierced  his  clothing  as 
he  fearlessly  exposed  himself.  Twenty  years  later, 
an  armed  host  of  Americans  who  had  gathered  around 
the  port  of  Boston  and  were  staggering  beneath  a  bur- 
den of  war  that  was  yet  too  great  for  them  to  carry, 
remembered  that  battle  on  the  bank  of  the  IMononga- 
hela,  and  sent  word  to  the  Continental  Congress  that 
they  would  "rejoice  to  see  this  way  the  beloved  Colonel 
Washington." 

Out  of  1373  privates  and  non-commissioned  officers, 
459  only  escaped  unhurt.  Among  those  who  escaped 
was  a  teamster  who  was  to  achieve  fame  in  after  years. 
His  name  was  Daniel  Boone,  and  he  was  then  twenty- 
one  years  old. 

147 


A  History  of  the 

The  French  had  three  officers  killed  and  two  officers 
and  two  cadets  wounded.  Of  their  regular  privates 
four  were  hurt.  The  Canadians  lost  five  wounded, 
and  the  Indians  twenty-seven  killed  and  wounded. 

In  its  immediate  result,  the  victory  seemed  almost 
decisive  for  the  French,  for  the  whole  frontier,  from 
Pennsylvania  south,  was  left  unguarded,  and  every 
tribe  of  red  men,  save  only  the  well-settled  portion 
of  the  Iroquois  at  the  eastern  end  of  their  "long  house," 
was  fully  committed  to  French  interests. 

And  yet  the  success  of  the  French  here  led  them 
ultimately  to  their  downfall.  For  as  soon  as  they 
learned  that  the  British  w^ere  fully  defeated,  they  began 
raiding  the  British  frontier,  and  the  devilish  cruelty 
of  these  raids  united  the  colonists  and  brought  them 
into  the  field  in  overwhelming  numbers. 

The  orders  to  raid  the  home  makers  on  the  British 
frontiers  were  issued  in  France — "manage  on  occasions 
in  which  there  may  be  acts  of  violence  in  such  a  manner 
as  not  to  appear  the  aggressor,"  said  a  letter  to  Du- 
quesne  dated  September  6,  1754,  but  "if  you  consider 
it  necessary  to  make  the  Indians  act  offensively  against 
the  English,  his  Majesty  will  approve  of  your  using 
that  expedient." 

As  a  matter  of  fact  little  effort  was  made  to  avoid 
appearing  as  aggressors.  Captain  Dumas  succeeded 
Contrecoeur  at  Fort  Duquesne,  and  he  immediately 
began  sending  parties  of  Indians  under  French  officers 
to  raid  the  Pennsylvania  frontiers.  In  speaking  of 
these  raids  Father  Godfroy  Cocquard,  S.  J.,  in  a  letter 
to  his  brother,  written  early  in  1757,  said: 

"The  Indians  do   not  make  any  prisoners;   they 
148 


Mississippi   Valley. 

kill  all  they  meet,  men,  women  and  children.  Every- 
day f/icy  have  some  in  their  kettle,  and  after  having 
abused  the  zuomen  and  maidens,  they  slaughter  or  burn 
them."  (N.  Y.  Colonial  Manuscripts,  vol.  x,  p.  528.) 

"The  upper  country  Indians  have  really  laid  waste 
Virginia  and  Pennsylvania,"  wrote  Montcalm  in  1756. 
The  Indians  on  the  Upper  Lakes  heard  of  the  vast 
amount  of  plunder  gathered  when  Braddock  fell,  and 
they  came  to  get  more  by  raiding  the  undefended  col- 
onists. 

"In  April  [1756]  there  had  been  in  those  parts 
twenty  detachments  of  Delawares  and  Chauanons 
[Shawnees]  ;  these  were  joined  by  more  than  sixty 
Indians  from  the  Five  Iroquois  Nations  who  have  com- 
mitted frightful  ravages.  The  only  resource  remaining 
to  the  inhabitants  was  to  abandon  their  houses  and  to 
remove  to  the  sea  coast.  Three  forts  have  been  burnt, 
among  the  rest  one  containing  a  garrison  of  forty- 
seven  men.  The  garrison  was  summoned  to  surrender, 
but  having  refused,  the  fort  was  set  on  fire  in  the  night. 
The  garrison  attempted  to  escape,  and  the  Indians  gave 
no  quarter,"  so  says  "Abstract  of  Despatches  from 
Canada,  Vol.  x,  N.  Y.  Colonial  Documents.  M.  Dou- 
ville  comanded  the  last  named  assault,  and  was  killedt 

Parkman  notes  that  Dumas  gave  to  each  French 
officer  in  command  of  a  party  of  raiders  a  zvritten  order 
to  keep  the  Indians  from  torturing  prisoners.  Park- 
man  thinks  these  orders  were  sincerely  given.  But 
the  student  of  history  may  reasonably  ask  why  were  the 
orders  written  in  every  case?  An  officer  obeys  an 
oral  order  as  carefully  as  a  written  one.  One  of  these 
written  orders  was  found  on  Douville  whose  forces 

149 


A  History  of  the 

"gave  no  quarter."  The  French  commander  not  only 
knew  that  the  Indians  would  give  no  quarter,  but  he 
knew  that  "every  day  they  have  some  in  their  kettles," 
as  Father  Cocquard  wrote.  If  the  French  King,  in 
his  orders  to  Duquesne  was  careful  to  say  that  "acts 
of  violence"  must  be  managed  so  as  not  "to  appear  the 
aggressor,"  is  it  too  much  to  suppose  that  Dumas  was 
animated  by  the  same  regard  for  appearances,  and  the 
same  disregard  of  the  infinite  horrors  of  Indian  atro- 
city? 

The  extent  of  the  country  raided  is  shown  by  the 
fact  that  on  August  2,  1756,  the  Chevalier  Villiers 
burned  the  log  fort  called  Grandville  on  the  north  bank 
of  the  blue  Juniata,  a  mile  west  of  the  present  town 
of  Lewiston,  Mifflin  county.  Pa.  He  was  but  sixty 
miles  from  Philadelphia. 

The  French  officers,  in  their  reports  on  aggressions 
very  often  used  the  term  "disgust  the  English."  What 
they  meant  to  say  was  that  they  believed  the  raids 
would  intimidate  the  Colonists — fill  them  with  the 
sense  of  inferiority  to  the  French. 

During  the  years  1756  and  1757,  (called  by  Win- 
sor  the  two  dismal  years),  and  in  a  part  of  1758,  the 
state  of  affairs  seemed  to  justify  the  French  hope.  To 
keep  back  the  Indians  the  Governor  of  Virginia  built 
a  fort,  (1756),  on  the  Holston  river  about  thirty  miles 
above  the  present  site  of  Knoxville.  Colonel  Bird  built 
another  in  the  same  county  in  1758.  Both  were  well 
garrisoned  and  mounted  cannon,  but  both  were 
whelmed  by  Indians  and  the  garrisons  forced  by  heavy 
losses  to  leave.  A  line  of  forts  was  built  along  the 
frontier.    At  the  demand  of  the  backwoodsmen,  and  in 

150 


Mississippi   Valley. 

spite  of  Quaker  protests,  a  reward  of  136  Spanish  dol- 
lars was  offered  for  every  scalp  of  a  male  Indian,  over 
twelve  years  of  age,  and  fifty  dollars  for  a  squaw 
scalp.  "Johi^  Potter,  sheriff  of  Cumberland  County, 
declared  that  the  only  way  to  prevent  slaughter  and 
destruction  on  the  frontier  was  to  send  a  strong  force 
into  the  center  of  the  Indian  stronghold.  His  wo,^ds 
are  worth  further  consideration.  While  it  is  true  that 
the  friendship  of  the  Indians  might  have  been  retained 
had  they  been  treated  on  all  occasions  with  Quaker 
kindness  and  justice,  it  is  equally  true  that  when  war 
i::i^  been  precipitated  by  wrong  treatment,  the  quickest 
an.l  therefore  the  most  merciful  way  to  end  it  was 
to  send  a  strong  force  under  a  strong  man  into  the 
center  of  the  Indian  country.  The  advice  of  John 
Potter  cannot  be  emphasized  too  much.  If  a  people 
are  attacked,  the  best  method  of  self-defence  is  to  strike 
into  the  heart  of  the  enemy's  country.  The  Governor 
of  Virginia  refused  to  heed  John  Potter.  He  built  a 
chain  of  forts  instead.  So  the  raiding  continued  un- 
checked. 

In  August,  1756,  the  French  captured  Oswego, 
"using  in  the  operation  the  cannon  Braddock  had  lost 
on  the  Monongahela."  On  July  6,  1758,  Abercrombie 
was  defeated  at  Ticonderoga. 

Then  the  bloody  tide  was  turned.  At  the  end  of 
July,  Amherst,  seconded  by  "the  slender,  nervous  and 
almost  dying  Wolf,"  captured  Louisburg.  Coming 
thence  to  Lake  Champlain,  Amherst  brought  victory 
with  him.  Lieutenant  Colonel  John  Bradstreet,  with 
"an  amphibious  little  army"  of  3,000  men,  crossed  Lake 
Ontario,  and  captured  Fort  Frontenac  on  the  morning 

151 


A  History  of  the 

of  August  26,  1758.  Nine  armed  vessels  were  in  the 
harbor.  Seven  of  these  were  destroyed,  and  two  loaded 
with  supplies  needed  for  a  new  fort  building  on  the 
site  of  Oswego,  which  the  French  had  abandoned. 

By  this  success  Bradstreet  gave  the  French  power 
in  the  Mississippi  Valley  a  serious  wound.  Their  com- 
mand over  Lake  Ontario,  and  so  over  their  highway 
from  Montreal  to  the  southwest,  was  gone.  Supplies 
could  still  be  sent  up  the  river  from  New  Orleans,  and 
from  Illinois,  but  the  chain  of  French  posts,  stretched 
first  by  La  Salle,  was  broken. 

Meantime  General  John  Forbes  left  Philadelphia, 
(end  of  June,  1758),  with  an  army  to  take  Fort  Du- 
quesne,  and  on  November  5,  he  was  on  Loyal  Hannon 
Creek,  in  the  town  of  Ligonier,  Westmoreland  County, 
Pa.,  fifty  miles  from  his  destination.  He  had  advanced 
by  slow  but  sure  stages ;  and  having  studied  well  Brad- 
dock's  disaster,  he  had  trained  his  force,  (between 
6,000  and  7,000  men,  of  whom  5,000  were  from  Penn- 
sylvania, Virginia  and  South  Carolina),  to  meet  the 
French  and  Lidians  in  their  own  manner  of  warfare. 

It  was  an  efficient  force,  but  the  Quakers  of  Phila- 
delphia forestalled  it  in  its  work.  They  opened  the 
way  so  effectually  that  Fort  Duquesne  might  have  been 
taken  without  firing  a  gun  in  the  whole  campaign.  And 
none  was  fired  in  the  vicinity  of  the  fort. 

That  the  Quakers  had  no  direct  influence  on  the 
French  scarcely  need  be  said.  But  while  Forbes  was 
on  the  way  west  they  persuaded  the  Governor  of  Penn- 
sylvania to  send  Christian  Frederick  Post,  a  Moravian 
preacher,  with  a  pipe  of  peace  from  them  to  the 
Indians  beyond  the  Ohio.     Post  had  earned  the  con- 

152 


Mississippi   Valley. 

fidence  of  the  Indians  by  his  sincerity  when  a  mission- 
ary among  them,  but  he  took  his  Hfe  in  his  hands 
when  he  accepted  this  task,  for  it  was  certain  the 
French  would  have  him  assassinated,  if  possible.  How- 
ever, he  reached  his  red  friends  in  November,  and  they 
accepted  the  pipe  of  peace  the  Quakers  had  sent  them. 

Sufficient  credit  has  not  been  given  to  this  mission 
of  peace,  in  our  histories  because,  probably,  the  writers 
have  supposed  that  Forbes  and  his  force  frightened  the 
Indians  into  submission.  But  a  careful  reading  of 
Post's  second  journal,  (see  the  "Olden  Time"),  shows 
clearly,  first,  that  Post  was  entirely  truthful,  and, 
second,  that  the  Indians  changed  their  allegiance  from 
the  French  to  the  British  (in  spite  of  every  opposition 
on  the  part  of  the  French  officers),  because  of  the 
message  Post  carried  to  them.  They  did  this  in  the 
face  of  the  overwhelming  defeat  of  a  detachment  o£ 
Forbes's  army,  800  strong,  under  Major  Grant,  where- 
in nearly  300  men  were  lost,  (Sept.  15,  1758). 

Forbes,  after  a  council  of  war,  had  determined  to 
proceed  no  further  than  Loyal  Hannon  Creek,  and  he 
would  have  persisted  in  this  determination,  but  for 
the  defection  of  the  Indians  from  the  French  interests 
after  they  had  seen  the  Quaker  pipe  of  peace.  And  the 
French  would  have  stood  firm  at  Fort  Duquesne  but 
for  this  defection.  French  officers  were  present  at  the 
public  councils  Post  held  with  the  Indians,  but  on 
the  night  of  November  22d,  1758,  "the  Indians  danced 
around  the  fire  until  midnight  for  joy  of  their  brethren, 
the  English  coming,"  and  the  next  day  the  French 
gave  up  hope. 

Returning  to  Fort  Duquesne,  on  the  afternoon  of 
153 


A  History  of  the 

the  23d,  De  Ligneris,  who  was  then  in  command,  and 
who  had  been  watching  Post,  prepared  his  forces  for 
embarkation.  All  the  buildings  and  the  fort  were 
fired.  Under  the  ominous  shadow  of  the  smoke  the 
French  divided  themselves  into  two  companies,  and  at 
daylight,  one  under  De  Ligneris  went  up  the  Alleghany 
to  Venango.  The  other  paddled  down  the  Ohio  to 
Fort  Massac,  a  station  not  far  from  the  Mississippi, 
left  there  a  small  garrison,  and  then  went  on  to  Fort 
Chartres. 

On  November  25,  General  Forbes  entered  Fort 
Duquesne,  and  having  repaired  it,  he  renamed  it  Fort 
Pitt,  from  which  we  have  the  name  of  the  modern 
city  of  Pittsburg. 

How  the  British  won  at  Fort  Niagara  and  at  Lake 
Champlain  in  1759;  how  and  why  Wolf  on  the  Plains 
of  Abraham  said,  "Now,  God  be  praised,  I  will  die  in 
peace,"  need  not  be  recounted  here,  even  though  these 
victories  shut  out  forever  the  French  from  the  Great 
Valley  which  La  Salle  had  given  them.  But  a  word 
regarding  French  official  life  in  America  during  the 
last  days  will  prove  instructive.  To  quote  the  words 
of  Parkman,  ("Wolf  and  Montcalm")  : 

"A  contagion  of  knavery  ran  through  the  colony. 
.  Conspicuous  among  these  military  thieves 
was  Major  Pean.  'La  Petite  Pean'  had  married  a 
young  wife,  famed  for  beauty,  vivacity  and  wit.  Bigot 
[the  Intendant]  who  was  near  sixty,  became  her  lover ; 
and  the  fortune  of  Pean  was  made.  ...  He  had 
bought  as  a  speculation  a  large  quantity  of  grain  with 
money  of  the  King,  lent  him  by  the  Intendant.  Bigot 
then  issued  an  order  raising  the  commodity  to  a  price 

154 


Mississippi   Valley. 

far  above  that  paid  by  Pean,  who  thus  made  a  profit 
of  50,000  crowns.  A  few  years  later  his  wealth  was 
estimated  at  from  two  to  four  million  francs.  Madam 
Pean  became  a  power  in  Canada,  the  dispenser  of  favor 
and  offices.  Pean,  jilted  by  his  own  wife,  made  pros- 
perous love  to  the  wife  of  his  partner,  Penisseault,  and 
after  the  war  took  her  with  him  to  France;  while  the 
aggrieved  husband  found  consolation  in  the  wives  of 
the  small  functionaries  under  his  orders." 

And  while  Wolf  was  before  Quebec,  and  food  was 
so  scarce  that  the  people  were  placed  on  a  ration  of 
two  ounces  of  bread  a  day,  "fowls  by  the  thousand 
were  fattened  on  wheat,"  that  Bigot  and  his  followers, 
male  and  female,  might  have  delicate  food  for  their 
carousals. 

After  the  fall  of  Quebec,  the  remainder  of  this 
war — the  great  Seven  Years  War — was  fought  out  in 
Europe.  In  November,  1762,  the  plenipotentiaries  of 
England,  France  and  Spain,  at  a  meeting  in  Paris, 
agreed  to  make  peace.  One  condition  of  the  treaty 
was  that  Canada  should  be  ceded  to  Great  Britain,  with 
all  of  the  French  claim  east  of  the  IMississippi.  Fear- 
ing that,  in  the  negotiations,  he  would  have  to  give 
the  whole  valley  to  the  British,  the  French  King  fore- 
stalled such  a  disaster  by  a  secret  treaty,  (dated  Nov. 
3,  1762),  in  which  he  gave  to  Spain  the  island  on 
which  New  Orleans  stood,  and  all  the  French  posses- 
sions west  of  the  IMississippi. 

Robert  Rene  Cavalier,  Sieur  de  la  Salle,  by  honest 
work,  filed  a  claim  in  the  name  of  France,  on  the  broad 
basin  of  the  Mississippi.  Honest  work  only  was  needed 
to  secure  to  that  nation  the  full  title  in  fee  simple.    But 

155 


A  History  of  the 

those  whom  France  sent  to  complete  her  title  took 
•for  a  pattern  of  life  the  example  found  m  the  Kmg  s 
court      From   first  to  last  the  most   excitmg  theme 
among  them— the  theme  that  created  deadly  quarrels 
most    frequently-was   the   matter   of   precedence   m 
social  and  public  functions.    From  the  first  to  the  last 
they  sought  the  sea  of  beaver  instead  of  the  South 
sea      In  gathering  wealth  they   flung  honor  to  the 
winds,  where  they  had  any  to  fling,  and  when  they 
had  accumulated  a  store,  they  spent  it  as  their  King 
was  spending  the  whole  French  nation.     It  was  be- 
cause the  dominant  French  in  America  were  foul  ex- 
udations of  the  Court  over  which  the  Pompadour  ruled, 
that  the  French  nation  was  driven  across  the  Atlantic. 
When  ten  righteous  men  could  not  be  found  in  all  the 
plain,  the  fire  of  God  swept  it.     It  was  in  accordance 
with  an  inexorable  law  of  nature  that  the  man  with 
the  axe  should  at  last  supplant  the  vagabond  with  the 
sword. 


156 


HKRNANOO    DE    SOTO. 
The  spelling  of  his  given  name  is  as  varied  as  his  biographers 


IX 


THE  SPANISH  IN  THE  GREAT  VALLEY. 

De  Soto's  Character  as  a  Highway  Robber  Plainly  Des- 
cribed— Raids  through  the  American  Wilderness  that 
turned  an  Army  of  Glittering  "Knights"  into  Wilder- 
ness Tramps — The  splendid  Courage  of  an  Explorer 
compared  with  the  stubborn  folly  of  a  Highwayman 
— The  first  thought  of  Proclaiming  an  American 
Nation — A  peep  into  the  Bed  Chamber  of  a  French 
Lady — "Ca  ira,  les  Aristocrates  a  la  Lanterne." 

Brief  shall  suffice  for  the  story  of  the  first  Span- 
ish expedition  to  the  banks  of  the  Mississippi,  for  the 
men  in  it  were  animated  by  the  spirit  of  highway  rob- 
bers, and  nothing  came  of  their  work. 

It  was  on  April  6,  1538,  that  Hernando  de  Soto 
sailed  from  Spain  on  the  expedition  that  led  him  to 
the  banks  of  the  Mississippi  River,  and  gave  him  the 

157 


A  History  of  the 

credit  of  being  the  first  more  or  less  civilized  man  to 
see  the  stream  and  explore  any  part  of  the  mighty 
basin.  The  story  of  this  expedition  has  fascinated 
more  than  one  poetic  mind.  "It  was  poetry  put  into 
action;  it  was  the  knight-errantry  of  the  Old  World 
carried  into  the  depths  of  the  American  wilderness," 
says  one  writer.  A  calm  study  of  the  facts,  however, 
shows  that  the  work  was  detestable.  Hernando  de  Soto 
had  been  a  follower  of  Pizarro,  and  had  enriched  him- 
self by  the  merciless  slaughter  and  robbery  of  the  Pe- 
ruvians. Returning  to  Spain  he  was  greatly  honored 
because  of  his  success,  but  neither  his  vanity  nor  his 
greed  was  satisfied. 

"De  Soto  burned  with  ambition  to  signalize  him- 
self equally  with  Cortez  and  Pizarro;"  the  region  north 
of  the  Gulf  of  Mexico  was  the  only  one  left  to  explore ; 
this  region  was  supposed  to  hold  as  much  gold  and  sil- 
ver as  the  countries  to  the  south,  and  to  Florida  De 
Soto  would  go. 

In  all,  1,000  men,  of  whom  350  were  mounted, 
sailed  from  Havana  on  May  12,  1539,  to  Florida. 
"They  provided  everything  which  the  experience  of 
former  expeditions  could  suggest,  or  avarice  or  cruelty 
dictate  *  *  *  chains  and  fetters  for  the  captives,  and 
even  blood  hounds  to  assist  in  drawing  them  from 
their  hiding  places." 

The  soldiers  were  completely  covered  with  armor 
that  was  trimmed  with  gold,  and  they  were  armed 
with  swords,  spears  and  cross  bows,  only  eighteen  hav- 
ing arquebusses,  as  the  rude  muskets  of  the  period 
were  called.  They  were  gay  "as  if  it  had  been  an  ex- 
cursion of  a  bridal  party."    Whether  awake  or  asleep, 

158 


i 


Mississippi  Valley. 

they  dreamed  only  of  finding  cities  of  red  men,  with 
gold-filled  temples  devoted  to  the  worship  of  the  sun. 
These  temples  were  to  be  robbed.  The  red  men  were 
to  be  set  to  work  as  slaves  in  the  mines,  with  armed 
men  to  keep  them  at  it,  and  priests  to  baptize  them  as 
they  expired  under  the  lash  or  by  more  cruel  torture. 

Having  landed  at  Espiritu  Santo  Bay,  Florida,  De 
Soto  led  his  ''steel  clad  cavaliers"  on  their  "prancing 
steeds"  into  the  wilderness  of  Florida.  Thereafter,  until 
the  spring  of  1541,  this  "glittering  host"  with  their 
waving  plumes  ranged  the  interior  in  search  of  gold. 
The  red  men  were  slaughtered  in  open  battle,  and  by 
deliberate  butchery  after  they  had  surrendered  as  pri- 
soners. They  were  maimed  and  they  were  tortured, 
because  they  had  no  gold  or  silver.  A  thousand,  chiefly 
women  and  children,  were  burned  alive  in  a  huge  pub- 
lic wigwam  at  one  village,  after  one  battle.  But  the 
Indians  were  not  cowed,  for  they  never  ceased  to  hover 
around  and  fight  back. 

The  Spaniards  had  come  to  take  gold  from  its 
rightful  owners,  but  they  never  saw  a  color  in  the  pan. 
Instead  of  finding  gold  they  lost  what  they  had  brought 
with  them.  Their  waving  plumes  were  broken  in  the 
brush.  Their  glittering  armor  was  rusted  in  the 
swamps,  and  battered  by  the  impetuous  red  home- 
defenders.  Their  clothes  were  worn  out.  Their  horses 
were  killed.  A  time  came,  (it  was  in  the  second  year), 
when  they  were  glad  to  use  rawhide  shields  in  place 
of  glittering  steel,  and  the  skins  of  wild  animals  in 
place  of  velvets  and  laces.  With  the  war  whoop  of 
the  red  man  ever  sounding  in  their  ears,  many  of  them 
came  at  last  to  long  for  a  speedy  return  home. 

159 


A  History  of  the 

But  the  vanity  of  De  Soto  held  them  fast.  Others 
might  return  and  admit  defeat,  not  he.  The  poet  says 
that  ambition  fired  his  fortitude,  but  in'  cold  fact,  it 
was  sheer  vanity,  what  would  have  been  called  splen- 
did courage  in  an  explorer,  was  stubborn  folly  in  him. 
The  motive  made  the  difference.  So  he  led  his  droop- 
ing, fagged  followers  away  from  the  port,  (Bay  of 
Achusi),  where  ships  were  awaiting  to  carry  him  to 
Cuba,  and  continue  on  through  the  wilderness. 

It  was  now  that  De  Soto  found  the  INIississippi. 
On  April  13,  1541,  he  reached  a  stream  which  he 
named  Rio  Grande  because  it  was  so  large — the  Mis- 
sissippi of  modern  days.  Up  this  stream  the  expediticai 
toiled  for  four  days  to  an  open  country.  There  they 
encamped  for  twenty  days  while  they  built  boats  to  carry 
them  over,  and,  presumably  on  May  7,  they  crossed  the 
river — fought  their  way  across,  for  armed  red  men 
stood  on  the  western  bank  and  came  aflCkat  tomeet  them. 

A  local  historian  (Monette)  thinks  De  Soto  crossed 
"within  thirty  miles  of  Helena,"  but  he  adds  that  "the 
changes  of  the  channel  in  the  lapse  of  300  years  may 
have  been  such  as  to  defy  identification." 

From  the  IMississippi,  De  Soto  marched  west  and 
north  to  a  mountainous  region — the  Ozarks — and  then 
gave  up  hope.  Turning  around  he  came  once  more 
to  the  Great  River.  He  arrived  in  the  spring  of  1542, 
at  the  village  of  Guachoya,  located  on  the  INIississippi, 
twenty  miles  below  the  Arkansas  river.  Here,  while 
building  vessels,  "the  incessant  fatigue  of  body  and 
anxiety  of  mind,  together  with  the  influence  of  climate, 
brought  on  a  slow,  wasting  fever;  and  here,  on  June  5, 
1542,  De  Soto  died." 

160 


Mississippi   Valley. 

It  had  been  the  habit  of  the  near  by  Indians,  (Qua- 
paws  they,  and  a  fierce  nation  when  defending  their 
homes),  to  dig  up  the  body  of  every  buried  Spaniard, 
quarter  it  and  hang  the  pieces  on  trees  and  posts,  as 
a  warning  to  the  predaceous  host.  To  save  the  body 
of  De  Soto  from  such  a  fate,  his  followers  made  a  cof- 
fin of  a  green  oak  log,  placed  the  body  therein,  and, 
carrying  it  to  the  center  of  the  Great  River,  sank  it  "in 
nineteen  fathoms  of  water." 

It  was  for  an  end  like  this  that  vanity  and  greed 
had  carried  De  Soto  into  the  American  wilderness. 
His  followers,  under  Luis  de  Mascoso,  made  another 
trip  into  the  wilds  to  the  west  of  the  river,  but  re- 
turned in  fewer  numbers  and  with  fewer  arms  and  less 
clothing.  No  leader  now  had  any  thought  but  to  es- 
cape the  wilderness,  and  building  such  boats  as  they 
could,  they  launched  forth  on  the  Great  River,  on  July 
2,  1543,  a  remnant  of  350  squalid,  ragged  wilderness 
tramps  out  of  the  plumed,  glittering  "knight-errants" 
that  had  come  to  fatten  on  blood  and  gold.  So  they 
reached  Panuco,  Mexico,  and  disappeared  in  the 
armies  maintained  in  Spanish  America  by  the  throne 
of  Spain. 

If  a  first  view  of  the  mouth  of  a  river  gave  its 
water  shed  to  the  nation  whose  explorers  obtained 
such  a  view,  then  the  IMississippi  Valley  was  right- 
fully Spain's.  Don  Alonzo  de  Pineda  discovered  the 
mouth  of  the  stream  in  15 19,  and  named  it  Espiritu 
Santo.  In  1528  Cabeza  de  Vaca  crossed  the  river, 
and  then  De  Soto  explored,  after  a  fashion,  a  consid- 
erable portion  of  the  valley.  Spain  might,  indeed,  have 
said  that  De  Soto's  expedition  "took  out  the  first  pa- 

161 


A  History  of  the 

pers"  for  a  claim,  if  we  may  use  the  homesteader's 
vernacular.  But  De  Soto's  expedition  completely  sat- 
isfied the  Spanish  in  one  sense;  they  would  have  no 
more  of  that  region  for  more  than  lOO  years.  But  it 
was  a  copy  of  the  Spanish  history  of  this  region  that  in- 
spired La  Salle  in  his  work. 

When,  in  November,  1762,  the  peace  commissions 
gathered  at  Paris  to  end  the  Seven  Years  War,  France 
was  not  only  anxious  to  thwart  as  far  as  possible  the 
British  ambition  for  territorial  expansion,  but  she  was 
w^illing  to  get  rid  of  the  burden  involved  in  supporting 
a  governor  in  Louisiana.  The  last  Governor,  (Ker- 
lerec),  had  used  10,000,000  livres  in  four  years — os- 
tensibly in  preparing  for  war.  Spain  therefore  once 
more  sent  a  soldier  of  repute  to  the  banks  of  the  Mis- 
sissippi. 

The  treaty  by  which  Spain  acquired  Louisiana  was 
completed  on  November  13,  1762,  but  for  a  time  the 
French  retained  control,  and  the  people  of  New  Or- 
leans knew  nothing  of  the  transfer. 

It  was  during  this  period  of  Spanish  ownership 
and  French  control  that  St.  Louis  was  founded.  Pierre 
Liqueste  Lacede  obtained  a  charter  which  gave  "the 
necessary  powers  to  trade  with  the  "]\Iissouri  river  In- 
dians, and  "as  far  north  as  the  river  St.  Peters."  On 
August  3,  1763,  Laclede,  with  August  and  Pierre  Cho- 
teau,  members  of  his  family,  (sons  of  his  mistress), 
left  New  Orleans.  He  reached  St.  Genevieve  on  No- 
vember 3.  Finding  no  houses  large  enough  to  hold 
his  goods,  he  went  on  to  Ft.  Chartres,  where  he  re- 
mained for  the  winter,  spending  the  time  in  explor- 
ing the  Mississippi  for  a  site  for  a  trading  station. 

162 


DON    ANTONIO    DE    ULLOA. 
Governor  of  Louisiana,  1764. 


Mississippi   Valley. 

At  a  distance  of  eighteen  miles  below  the  mouth 
of  the  Missouri  river  he  found,  on  the  west  bank,  "a 
growth  of  heavy  timber,  skirting  the  river  bank,  and 
behind  it,  at  an  elevation  of  some  thirty  feet,"  a  "beau- 
tiful expanse  of  undulating  prairie."  To  this  spot  he 
brought  his  party  and  possessions  on  February  15, 
1764,  and  laying  out  a  town  site,  he  named  it  St.  Louis. 

Meantime  M.  D'Abbadie  was  sent  out  by  the 
French  government  to  rule  New  Orleans.  He  took 
command  June  29,  1763,  knowing  nothing  of  the  sale 
to  Spain,  but  during  the  summer  rumors  of  the  sale 
came  and  in  October  the  Government  confirmed  the 
rumors.  Meantime  D'Abbadie  died  and  one  Aubry 
succeeded  him. 

The  French  inhabitants  were  excited  and  alarmed. 
Commissioners  were  sent  to  Paris  to  petition  for  the 
repurchase  of  the  territory,  but  in  vain.  In  1765  a  let- 
ter was  received  from  Don  Antonio  de  Ulloa,  a  com- 
modore in  the  Spanish  navy,  and  a  man  of  letters  as 
well.  It  was  written  at  Havana,  on  July  loth,  and  an- 
nounced that  he  had  been  appointed  governor  and 
would  "soon  have  the  honor"  to  come  and  render  "all 
the  services  the  inhabitants  may  desire." 

He  arrived  at  New  Orleans  on  March  5,  1766.  He 
was  a  man  of  learning  and  an  author  of  wide  repute, 
but  he  was  coldly  received.  A  committee  of  merchants 
presented  a  petition  that  seemed  to  Ulloa  to  be  "inso- 
lent and  menacing"  in  its  tone.  The  superior  council, 
a  legislative  body,  demanded  the  exhibition  of  Ulloa's 
commission.  The  French  troops  declined  absolutely 
to  enter  the  Spanish  service,  although  the  agreement 
with  Spain  had  provided  that  they  should  do  so. 

163 


A  History  of  the 

Because  of  the  mutinous  spirit  of  the  people  "the 
really  mild  and  liberal  Ulloa"  did  not  show  his  com- 
mission, or  take  formal  charge  of  affairs,  but  man- 
aged matters  as  well  as  he  could  through  Aubry.  He 
began  a  series  of  concessions  for  the  benefit  of  trade. 
He  allowed  the  French  flag  to  fly.  He  did  more  to 
conciliate  the  people  than  he  should  have  done,  for 
his  mildness  was  misunderstood,  and  as  time  passed, 
advantage  was  taken  of  it  to  create  an  insurrection. 
"Now  it  was  that  a  deficiency  in  habits  of  mature 
thought  and  self-control,  and,  in  that  study  of  recipro- 
cal justice  and  natural  right,  became  to  the  people  of 
New  Orleans  and  Louisiana  a  calamity."  (Cable.) 

On  October  25,  1768,  a  great  mob  from  the  Aca- 
dian and  German  coasts  entered  the  city.  They  were 
armed  with  fowling  pieces,  with  muskets  and  all  sorts 
of  weapons."  The  cannon  at  the  gates  of  the  fortifi- 
cations had  been  spiked  during  the  night.  The  people 
of  the  city  rose  in  a  body.  Ulloa  and  his  family  were 
obliged  to  board  a  Spanish  frigate  to  escape  the  mob. 
The  superior  council  at  a  meeting,  the  next  day,  adopt- 
ed a  report  demanding  that  Ulloa  leave  the  colony,  and 
on  October  31,  he  did  leave,  "enduring  at  the  last 
moment  the  songs  and  jeers  of  a  throng  of  night  roy- 
sterers." 

The  leaders  of  the  mob  at  first  thought  to  set  up 
a  new  nation,  and  they  applied  to  the  British  of  Pen- 
sacola  for  help.  But  failing  to  get  help  they  abandoned 
this  early  thought  of  American  freedom,  and  begged 
Louis  XV.  to  take  them  back.  "Great  King,  the  best 
of  Kings,  father  and  protector  of  your  subjects,  deign, 
sire,  to  receive  into  your  royal  and  paternal  bosom  the 

164 


Mississippi   Valley. 

children  who  have  no  other  desire  than  to  die  your 
subjects!"  said  the  petition  sent  to  Paris.  Neverthe- 
less here  was  the  first  colony  in  America  that  enter- 
tained the  idea  of  proclaiming  her  independence. 

But  both  the  thought  of  liberty,  and  the  petition 
to  "the  father  and  protector  of  your  subjects,"  failed. 
On  August  1 8,  1769,  Don  Alexandre  O'Reilly,  landed 
at  New  Orleans  with  600  picked  soldiers,  from  a  fleet 
of  twenty- four  ships,  that  lay  at  anchor  in  the  Crescent. 
The  jeers  that  filled  the  ears  of  the  departing  Ulloa 
were  hushed.  In  place  of  them  were  heard  the  cheers 
of  the  thronging  soldiers.  But  when  the  flag  of  France 
came  down,  and  that  of  Spain  arose,  the  people  wept 
aloud  in  spite  of  bayonets. 

O'Reilly  was  Irish  by  birth,  but  by  long  training 
had  become  a  Spaniard  in  his  mental  characteristics. 
He  had  come  to  punish  the  leaders  of  the  insurrection, 
but  he  concealed  his  thoughts.  On  August  31,  he  in- 
vited, with  "professions  of  esteem  and  friendship," 
the  leaders  of  the  insurrection  to  attend  a  levee  at  his 
ofiicial  residence.  They  accepted,  and  "while  enjoy- 
ing the  hospitality  of  his  house,  were  invited  by  O'Reil- 
ly himself  into  an  adjoining  apartment,"  where  they 
were  arrested  by  armed  soldiers.  (Monette.)  The 
men  so  arrested  were  Focault,  former  commissary- 
general;  De  Noyant  and  Boisblanc,  of  the  superior 
council;  La  Freniere,  attorney-general,  and  Braud, 
public  printer;  Marquis,  an  officer;  Doucet,  a  lawyer; 
Villiere,  Mazeut  and  Petit,  planters.  John  and  Jo- 
seph Milhet,  Caresse,  and  W.  Poupet,  merchants,  were 
arrested  several  days  later.  "The  trials  which  followed 
were  hasty,  arbitrary  and  tyranical  in  the  extreme." 

165 


A  History  of  the 

De  Noyant,  La  Freniere,  ^Marquis,  Joseph  and  Caresse 
were  convicted  and  sentenced  to  die,  with  confiscation 
of  property.  They  were  shot  to  death  on  September  28. 
In  connection  with  the  execution  of  these  French 
mutineers  Gayarre  gives  us  an  interesting,  and  per- 
haps not  impertinent  peep  into  the  bed  chamber  of  a 
grand  lady  of  the  day.  The  property  of  the  executed 
men  having  been  confiscated,  an  inventory  of  the  house- 
hold effects  of  each  was  taken.  In  the  bed  room  of 
Madam  Villiere  the  confiscators  found  a  "cypress  bed- 
stead, three  feet  wide,  by  six  in  length  with  a  mattress 
of  corn  shucks  and  one  of  feathers  on  the  top;  a  bol- 
ster of  corn  shucks,  (split  fine  and  curled,  without  a 
doubt),  and  a  coarse  cotton  counterpane;  six  chairs 
of  cypress  wood,  with  straw  bottoms;  some  candle 
sticks  with"  candles  made  of  the  wax  of  the  myrtle 
bush.  It  was  a  bed  room  in  marked  contrast  to  "the 
hooped  petticoat,  the  brocaded  gown,  the  rich  head 
dress ;"  and  other  fine  clothing  of  the  lady. 

O'Reilly  came  to  enforce  the  submission  of  the 
people.  His  power  was  ample  and  his  methods  ef- 
fective. Having  shot  five,  he  sent  four  more  to  Morro 
Castle,  at  Havana,  where  they  were  imprisoned  one 
year.     That  ended  the  insurrection  spirit. 

Martin  says  the  population  of  Louisiana,  at  this  time, 
was  estimated  at  13,540  souls.  New  Orleans  held 
3,190,  of  whom  1,803  were  free  whites,  31  free  blacks, 
1,225  slaves.  Martin  gives  St.  Louis  a  population  of 
891,  meaning  thereby,  apparently,  the  region  of  which 
St.  Louis  was  the  chief  settlement. 

The  pictures  of  life  under  the  early  Spanish  rule 
are  interesting.  "I  found  the  English  in  complete  pos- 

166 


Mississippi   Valley. 

session  of  the  commerce  of  the  colony.  They  had  in 
this  town  their  merchants  and  traders,  with  open  stores 
and  shops,  and  I  can  safely  assert  that  they  pocketed 
nine-tenths  of  the  money  spent  here,"  reported  O'Reil- 
ly. But  he  soon  "drove  off  all  the  English  traders," 
and  all  other  individuals  of  that  nation. 

The  British  having,  meantime,  come  into  control 
of  West  Florida,  and  the  east  shore  of  the  Mississippi 
above  the  Bayou  Manchac,  and  having  moreover,  the 
right  of  free  navigation  of  the  big  river,  had  not  only 
established  trading  posts  on  their  own  territory,  con- 
tiguous to  the  French  domain,  but  during  the  rule 
of  D'Abbadie  and  Aubry  had  entered  the  city  itself,  ob- 
taining permits,  no  doubt,  by  bribing  the  officials. 

When  driven  out  by  O'Reilly  the  British  merchants, 
knowing  that  they  had  the  right  to  the  free  navigation: 
of  the  river,  built  "two  large  floating  ware  houses,  fit- 
ted up  with  counters  and  shelves,  and  stocked  with  as- 
sorted merchandise" — the  first  houseboat  of  the  Mis- 
sissippi known  to  the  record.  These  were  moored  at 
Gretna,  opposite  the  city,  a  good  part  of  the  time,  but 
where  poled  (pushed),  up  stream  when  the  exigencies 
of  trade  among  the  "Cajuns"  or  at  the  German  Coast 
demanded.  "Anything  offered  in  trade  was  acceptable,, 
revenue  laws  were  mentioned  only  in  jest,  profits  were 
large,  credit  was  free  and  long,  and  business  was 
brisk." 

Martin  makes  an  estimate  of  the  business  of  Louisi- 
ana province,  at  this  time,  and  places  the  annual  ex- 
ports at:  Indigo,  $100,000;  deer  skins,  $80,000;  lum- 
ber, $50,000;  naval  stores,  (resin,  etc.),  $12,000;  rice, 
peas   and  beans,   $4,000;  tallow,  $4,000 — a  total  of 

167 


A  History  of  the 

$250,000.  The  smuggling  trade  done  with  the  Span- 
ish colonies  before  O'Reilly's  time  reached  $60,000  a 
year. 

"The  indigo  of  Louisiana  was  greatly  inferior  to 
that  of  Hispaniola;  the  planters  being  quite  unskill- 
ful and  inattentive  in  the  manufacture  of  it." 

The  culture  of  sugar  cane,  introduced  by  the  Jesuits, 
had  not  flourished.  A  M.  Dubreuil,  in  1758,  had 
erected  a  sugar  mill  in  the  lower  part  of  the  present 
city,  and  a  cargo  of  soft  sugar  was  exported  to  France 
in  1765.  But  half  of  it  leaked  from  the  barrels  during 
the  voyage,  and  the  sugar  made  thereafter,  for  a  long 
time,  was  consumed  at  home. 

Some  time  after  O'Reilly  arrived  at  New  Orleans, 
a  fleet  of  transports  came  up  the  river  bringing  2,600 
Spanish  soldiers.  The  ships  with  food  supplies  failed 
to  arrive  in  time,  and  provisions  became  so  scarce  that 
the  price  of  flour  quickly  rose  to  $20  a  barrel.  In 
this  condition  of  affairs  came  Oliver  Pollock,  a  Balti- 
more merchant,  with  a  ship  load  of  flour  which  he 
offered  to  O'Reilly  for  the  use  of  the  soldiers,  and  the 
people,  at  his  own  price — a  notable  incident  in  the  his- 
tory of  American  commerce.  O'Reilly  declined  to 
fix  the  price  and  Pollock  put  it  at  $15.  Then  O'Reilly 
bought  it  and  "granted  to  Pollock  the  free  trade  of 
Louisiana"  for  life — a  privilege  worth  much  more 
than  five  dollars  per  barrel  on  one  cargo  of  flour. 

O'Reilly  sailed  from  New  Orleans  on  October  29, 
1770,  leaving  Louis  de  Unzaga,  with  1,200  soldiers,  to 
rule.  O'Reilly  having  pacified,  Unzaga  was  to  concili- 
ate, the  people.  How  he  succeeded  he  tells  in  a  letter 
to  the  Bishop  of  Cuba  (1773),  in  which  he  says  there 

168 


Mississippi   Valley. 

are  not  in  New  Orleans  and  its  environs  2,000  souls 
of  all  professions  and  conditions.  Many  Creoles  (that 
is,  as  Cable  says,  "the  French  speaking  ruling  class"), 
had  emigrated  to  St.  Domingo,  taking  with  them  me- 
chanics and  other  valuable  citizens — a  movement 
which  those  who  lived  long  enough,  greatly  regretted, 
less  than  twenty  years  later,  when  the  negroes  arose." 

In  place  of  these  emigrants  came  many  Spaniards, 
and  in  one  respect  the  Spanish  families  were  better 
for  the  country  than  the  French  had  been,  for  they 
came  to  make  Louisiana  their  home,  where  the  French 
had,  to  a  great  extent,  looked  upon  the  country  as  an 
abiding  place  where  tliose  with  sufficient  influence 
could  accumulate  wealth.  But  not  all  the  French  emi- 
grated, and  in  consequence  two  social  communities 
were  created  in  one  town — an  official  Spanish  com- 
munity, and  a  land-owning,  French-speaking  aristoc- 
racy. 

A  curious  result  followed.  Many  Spanish  officials, 
including  Gov.  Unzaga,  who  succeeded  him,  married 
French  ladies.  But  "in  the  society  balls  when  the  un- 
compromising civilian  of  the  one  nationality  met  the 
equally  unyielding  military  officers  of  the  other,  the 
cotillion  was  French  or  Spanish,  according  to  the 
superior  strength  of  the  Creole  or  Spanish  party." 
And  "more  than  once"  there  was  "actual  onset  and 
bloodshed,"  to  determine  which  was  the  stronger,  with 
duels  a  plenty  next  day. 

Spanish  Ursuline  nuns,  brought  from  Havana  to 
teach  Spanish,  "found  themselves  compelled  to  teach 
in  French,  and  to  content  themselves  with  the  feeble 
achievement  of  hearing  the  Spanish  catechism   from 

169 


A  History  of  the 

girls   who   recited   it   with   tears   rolhng   down   their 
cheeks"  (Cable). 

"I  cannot  flatter  his  majesty  so  much  as  to  say  that 
the  people  have  ceased  to  be  French  at  heart,"  wrote 
Unzaga  in  1773,  and  Bishop  Penalvert  in  1795  ^^~ 
peated  the  same  thought. 

Not  only  did  Unzaga  fail  to  make  Spanish  of  the 
Creoles;  he  and  his  successors  failed  absolutely  to 
create  a  colony  worth  comparison  in  any  respect,  save 
one,  with  the  Anglo-Saxon  communities  at  the  North- 
east. When  a  stranger  passed  the  thresholds  of  New 
Orleans  he  was  "welcomed  with  such  manners  as  were 
habitual  in  the  most  accomplished  court  of  Europe." 
In  "artificially  graceful  deportment"  (Gayarre),  and 
in  that  only,  this  Latin-American  colony  led  all  other 
American  colonies.  In  all  practical  matters,  the  Lou- 
isiana territory  was  sunk  into  the  rich  soil  of  the  valley 
by  its  official  incubus. 

The  local  historians  tell  of  the  convents,  the 
churches,  the  hospitals  and  the  fortifications  that  were 
built  in  New  Orleans,  but  the  most  careful  search  of 
all  that  they  have  written  shows  but  one  indication  or 
promise  of  the  magnificent  future  that  awaited  the  city. 
It  was  this — When  the  French  Republic  arose  to  "fire 
the  Creoles'  long-suppressed  enthusiasm,"  the  "Mar- 
seillaise was  wildly  called  for  in  the  theatre ;  and  in  the 
drinking  shops  was  sung  defiantly  the  song,  '  Ca  ira — 
ca  ira,  les  aristocrates  a  la  lanterne.'  "  A  thought — 
even  a  hope  of  self-government,  ill-conceived,  and 
dimly  seen,  indeed,  and  yet  unmistakable,  was  in  the 
hearts  of  this  people.  They  were  lying  in  the  cradle 
of  a  paternal  despotism,  but  by  and  by  they  would  walk. 

170 


X 


PONTIACS   WAR   AS   SEEN   IN   THE   VALLEY. 

The  True  Cause  of  Pontiac's  War  Considered — The  Sav- 
age Victories  at  Erie,  Le  Boeuf  and  Venango — Fort 
Pitt  twice  Besieged — Saved  by  the  First  Armored 
War  Ship  known  to  American  History — The  Des- 
perate Fight  at  Bushy  Run — A  Comparison  of 
Losses — The  Universal  Law  of  Compensation  has 
been  Written  in  Blood  from  the  Blue  Juniata  to 
Jackson's  Hole. 

To  learn  the  origin  of  Pontiac's  war,  one  must  go 
back  to  the  evacuation  of  Fort  Duquesne,  November 
24,  1758,  because  the  Indians  began  to  grow  angry 
very  soon  after  that  event;  and  they  were  angered 
because  of  what  followed  naturally  (alas!)  as  a  result 
of  British  domination.  As  soon  as  Fort  Duquesne 
came  into  the  possession  of  the  British,  the  traders 

171 


A  History  of  the 

began  to  stream  through  the  passes.  These  traders 
had,  in  former  times,  defrauded  the  Indians  by  finesse. 
The  French  traders  had  made  more  than  700  per  cent, 
profit  (La  Houtan),  but  both  the  British  and  French 
had  always  made  many  presents  to  the  influential  mem- 
bers of  the  tribes.  When  the  French  government  could 
no  longer  assist  the  French  trader,  however,  the  Brit- 
ish traders  had  almost  a  monopoly  of  the  Indian  traffic, 
and  the  one  brutally  odious  characteristic  of  the  Anglo- 
Saxon — his  contemptuous  disregard  of  the  rights  of 
inferior  races — displayed  itself.  Where  the  traders 
had  bribed,  they  now  bullied,  the  Indians.  Whom  they 
had  caressed,  they  now  kicked  from  their  path.  In- 
stead of  adroit  swindlers,  they  became  highway  rob- 
bers without  masks. 

Even  the  officers  and  the  soldiers  who  replaced  the 
French  in  the  frontier  posts  after  the  fall  of  Quebec 
(1760),  forgot,  if  they  ever  learned,  that  soldiers  are 
trained  solely  to  protect  the  weak.  The  Indian  had 
been  received  at  the  stations  with  flattery  and  feasting ; 
he  was  now,  with  undisguised  disgust,  kicked  from  the 
premises. 

This  matter  seems  important  because  the  Indians, 
as  a  mass,  were  not  incited  to  go  to  war  under  Pontiac 
by  any  encroachment  of  settlers  actually  made  in  the 
territory  France  had  surrendered.  The  prime  moving 
cause  of  this  war  was  the  bearing  of  the  traders  and 
soldiers  who  came  to  and  were  stationed  among  the 
Indians.  Pontiac  and  his  long-headed  sachems  saw, 
indeed,  that  British  colonial  farmers  would  follow  the 
soldiers  to  the  British  forts,  and  would  there  clear 
away  the  forests — destroy  the  hunting  grounds — but 

172 


MAJOR    ROBERT    ROGERS. 

From  an  engrraved 


Indian  fighter,  ranger,  English  spy,  etc 
portrait  of  1770. 


Mississippi   Valley. 

they  were  not  aroused  to  a  point  where  they  would 
resent  the  foreseen  intrusion  until  the  aggressive  ar- 
rogance of  the  British  forerunners  became  unbearable. 

In  1760  Pontiac,  the  chief  of  the  Ottawas,  was 
willing  to  be  the  friend  of  the  British.  Major  Robert 
Rogers,  while  on  his  way  to  take  over  the  French  forts 
at  Detroit  and  IMackinac,  met  Pontiac  where  Cleve- 
land, Ohio,  now  stands.  It  was  a  meeting  of  two  able 
w^arriors.  Pontiac,  on  learning  the  mission  of  the 
British  forces,  not  only  bade  them  go  on,  but  he  sent 
messengers  who  shielded  them  from  the  attack  of  In- 
dians along  the  Detroit  river.  And  that  he  remained 
neutral,  if  not  friendly,  for  some  time  after  the  British 
took  possession  of  all  the  French  forts  is  manifest  from 
the  fact  that  several  small  conspiracies  were  created 
among  the  Indians  living  between  the  Alleghanies  and 
the  Illinois,  in  which  Pontiac  did  not  appear. 

Pontiac  might  have  been  made  the  firm  friend  of 
the  whites — he  would  have  been  made  a  friend  had  he 
been  treated  with  kindly  consideration.  The  histor- 
ians rail  much  at  the  "stubborn  Quakers"  of  Pennsyl- 
vania for  refusing  to  vote  supplies  during  Pontiac's 
war,  but  they  omit  the  fact  that  if  Quakers  had  been 
employed  to  deal  with  the  Western  Indians,  there 
would  have  been  no  war  with  Pontiac.  The  Pontiac 
war  was  due  to  outrageous  doings  of  white  men  in 
contact  with  the  red,  and  the  utter  neglect  of  the  au- 
thorities in  the  seats  of  government.  As  the  time 
passed,  Pontiac  saw  the  trend  of  British  domination — 
that  the  red  men  were  to  be  subjugated  by  a  race  whose 
arrogance  and  insolence  w^ere  unendurable,  and  then 
he  prepared  for  war. 

^73 


A  History  of  the 

Pontiac  knew  that  the  French  had  been  defeated 
at  Niagara  and  Quebec,  but  he  did  not  know  that  the 
French  nation  was  staggering  to  its  knees  under  a 
weight  of  corruption  too  great  to  be  borne.  He  sup- 
posed that  if  the  red  men  were  all  to  unite  they  would 
be  joined  by  the  French,  as  of  old,  and  that  with  one 
mighty  upheaval  those  united  powers  could  sweep  the 
British  into  the  sea.  With  shoulders  humping  and 
hands  chopping  the  air,  the  French  vehemently  en- 
couraged this  view,  and  Pontiac  determined  to  try. 

The  writers  speak  of  this  war  as  Pontiac's  "con- 
spiracy." They  call  the  artifices  by  which  he  and  his 
men  strove  to  get  advantages  over  the  white  soldiers 
as  treachery.  In  like  manner  Indian  warriors  have 
been  styled  horse  thieves.  But  remembering  that  civ- 
ilized naval  officers  have  disguised  warships  as  mer- 
chantmen, and  that  civilized  governments,  long  after 
Pontiac's  death,  authorized  private  armed  ships  to  prey 
on  the  unarmed  merchantmen  of  the  enemy,  we  will 
speak  of  Pontiac  and  his  men  as  wild  men — savages 
only. 

How  Pontiac  fasted  and  prayed  and  dreamed 
dreams ;  how  he  gathered  the  tribes  to  a  great  council, 
and  fired  them  with  his  own  mad  enthusiasm ;  how  the 
Frenchmen  helped  on  the  combination,  and  promised 
to  take  part  in  the  actual  war;  how  the  red  sweetheart 
of  the  commander  at  Detroit  betrayed  the  plot  in  time 
to  save  the  garrison  there ;  how  Pontiac  and  his  sixty 
warriors,  with  sawed  off  guns  under  their  blankets,  and 
a  lie  on  their  lips  came  to  the  fort,  to  stagger  with 
astonishment  as  they  saw  the  troops  under  arms  and 
heard  the  drums  roll;  how  they  struck  on  May   lo, 

174 


Mississippi   Valley. 

1763,  nevertheless;  and  how  until  October  12,  the  in- 
congruous forces  were  held  to  the  work  of  besieging 
the  British  fort,  and  finally  gave  up  only  when  Sir 
Jeffrey  Amherst  compelled  the  French  commandant  at 
Fort  Chartres  to  send  a  message  to  Detroit  calling  off 
the  red  warriors,  can  have  only  mention  here.  Of 
the  fighting  that  was  done  within  the  watershed  of  the 
Ohio,  however,  some  details  may  be  given. 

On  May  18,  the  Indians  in  a  great  mob  made  a 
furious  attack  on  the  fort  at  Le  Beuf  (Waterford), 
Pennsylvania.  The  assault  failed.  At  night  they  fired 
the  wooden  structure,  and  then  danced  before  the  gate, 
as  they  looked  to  see  Ensign  Price  and  his  thirteen 
men  come  out  to  die  fighting.  But  Price  and  his  men 
cut  their  way  through  the  rear  wall  and  escaped  to  the 
woods.  By  a  circuitous  route  they  reached  French 
Creek,  and  passing  down  arrived  at  Venango. 

In  place  of  a  stockaded  fort  they  found  there  a  heap 
of  hot  ashes  and  a  few  smoking  logs.  A  party  of 
Seneca  Indians  (the  Seneca  tribe  only,  of  the  Six  Na- 
tions, joined  Pontiac),  had  entered  the  fort  professing 
friendship,  and  then  had  tomahawked  all  the  garrison 
save  Lieut.  Gordon,  commanding.  Him  they  burned 
in  Seneca  fashion,  keeping  him  alive  for  three  days. 

By  following  the  river,  Price  and  seven  of  his  men 
reached  Fort  Pitt,  on  May  26.  Six  had  dropped  on 
the  trail  through  exhaustion.  On  the  same  day  a  sol- 
dier named  Gray  arrived  from  Presqu'  Isle,  (Erie,  Pa.), 
with  a  story  of  the  slaughter  of  all  but  himself  and 
one  other  man  of  the  garrison  there,  although  the  In- 
dians had  promised  them  a  safe  conduct  to  Fort  Pitt. 

A  day  later  (May  27,  1763),  the  Indians  were 
175 


A  History  of  the 

prowling  around  Fort  Pitt,  killing  stragglers.  A  dele- 
gation came  to  the  Fort  and  demanded  that  it  surren- 
der, promising,  the  while,  a  safe  conduct  to  all  within 
its  walls  to  the  settlements  in  Pennsylvania.  They 
pretended  to  be  friendly  and  anxious  only  to  keep  the 
people  in  the  fort  from  the  hands  of  Pontiac  and  his 
Western  Indians,  who,  they  said,  were  on  the  way. 
Capt.  Ecuyer  thanked  them  and  in  return  warned  them 
to  flee  quickly  because,  he  said,  an  army  of  6,000  men 
was  coming  to  Fort  Pitt,  and  3,000  more  were  going 
up  the  lakes. 

It  is  an  interesting  fact  that  while  the  Indians  were 
trying  to  deceive  Ecuyer  they  were  themselves  de- 
ceived, and  fled.  They  went  east,  instead  of  west, 
however,  and  they  ravaged  the  frontiers,  as  they  had 
done  when  incited  by  the  French.  Thus  they  learned 
that  no  army  was  coming  to  Fort  Pitt,  and  on  July  26, 
they  came  back  to  the  fort. 

Shingiss  (a  notable  leader).  Turtle  Heart  and 
another  chief  were  admitted  to  a  conference,  when  they 
asked  for  it;  and  Shingiss  made  a  speech  which  un- 
fortunately has  not  been  preserved — unfortunately 
because  it  was  a  fierce  statement  of  the  real  wrongs  the 
Indians  had  suffered  at  the  hands  of  the  whites,  with 
special  emphasis  on  the  supposed  wrong  of  taking  their 
hunting  grounds.  It  was  a  speech  to  make  a  patriot 
wince,  but  Capt.  Ecuyer's  reply  was  still  more  painful 
to  the  patriot  heart,  for  it  was  a  lie.  He  said  the  Brit- 
ish posts  were  maintained  in  the  Indian  country  solely 
to  protect  the  Indians  from  the  French.  And  yet, 
while  he  talked,  there  were  100  women  and  children 
of  would  be  settlers,  within  the  walls  of  the  fort. 

176 


Mississippi   Valley. 

A  siege  followed  that  is  memorable  for  one  event. 
The  Indians,  by  creeping  under  the  shelter  of  the  banks 
of  the  streams,  found  a  safe  lodgment  under  the  walls 
of  the  fort,  and  were  able  to  shoot  flaming  arrows  to 
the  roofs  of  the  fort  buildings  in  a  way  that  was  ex- 
ceedingly dangerous  to  the  whites.  A  rude  fire  engine 
was  constructed,  but  only  constant  and  most  wearying 
vigilance  saved  the  buildings  from  destruction;  and 
finally  it  appeared  that  the  garrison  would  be  ex- 
hausted by  the  struggle. 

In  this  extremity  some  bright  intellect  planned 
relief.  A  flat  boat,  with  wooden  walls  that  were  bullet 
proof,  was  built  and  mounted  on  rollers.  A  crew,  well 
supplied,  was  placed  in  it,  and  it  was  then  rushed 
through  a  gate  and  down  a  steep  slope  into  the  Mo- 
nongahela.  The  crew  then  anchored  off  the  point 
where  they  could  fire  through  their  ports  and  rake  the 
Indians  concealed  in  little  caves  under  the  banks. 
''Whereat,"  as  a  soldier  who  was  present  says,  "they 
set  up  the  most  diabolical  yells  I  ever  heard,  retired 
up  stream,  and  never  again  ventured  so  close  to  us" 
in  daylight.  The  success  of  this,  the  first  armored 
American  warship,  was  manifest  from  the  first  run. 

It  is  estimated  that  20,000  people  were  driven  from 
their  homes  in  Virginia  by  the  red  raiders.  In  Penn- 
sylvania the  red  fire  swept  eastward  until  the  smoke 
was  seen  from  the  mountains  around  Carlisle.  In 
Virginia  a  thousand  riflemen  were  enrolled,  and  these 
beat  back  the  raiders.  In  Pennsylvania,  Col.  Henry 
Bouquet,  a  native  of  Berne,  Switzerland  (a  soldier 
of  fortune),  was  placed  in  command  of  500  men,  the 
remains  of  two  regiments  of  regular  troops,  and  sent 

177 


A  History  of  the 

with  supplies,  toward  Fort  Pitt.  He  left  Carlisle  on 
July  19,  with  what  seemed  a  most  forlorn  hope.  For 
the  force  was  inadequate  in  number,  the  soldiers  were 
not  frontiersmen,  and  many  of  them  were  sick.  But 
it  is  recorded  of  Bouquet  that  "he  was  enthusiastic 
in  the  study  of  his  profession,"  and  such  a  leader  could 
not  fail  altogether. 

Fort  Bedford  and  then  Fort  Ligonier  were  reached 
without  mishap.  The  Indians  about  each  place  fled 
when  Bouquet  came,  but  it  was  only  to  gather  in  force 
further  on. 

Leaving  Ligonier  on  August  4,  Bouquet  camped 
within  eighteen  miles  of  Bushy  Run.  The  next  day 
a  forced  march  was  made  over  a  dry  trail  for  seven- 
teen miles — a  distance  that  was  covered  by  i  o'clock 
in  the  afternoon — and  the  tired  and  thirsty  soldiers 
were  hastening  forward,  hoping  for  rest  and  water 
on  the  shaded  banks  of  the  run,  when  the  brush  ahead 
of  the  advance  guard  began  to  spit  flames,  and  in  a 
few  moments  the  whole  force  was  surrounded  by  a 
whooping,  merciless  horde  of  Delawares,  Shawnees 
and  Mingoes.  The  Indians  that  had  been  foiled  at 
Fort  Pitt  came  to  seek  revenge  on  the  troops  of  Bouquet. 

Lining  up  in  a  circle  around  the  supplies  and  bag- 
gage, the  little  force  of  white  men  stood  in  their  places, 
and  fired  back  at  the  gun  flashes  of  the  Indians  who 
kept  well-hid  behind  rocks  and  trees. 

It  was  a  most  unequal  conflict.  The  troops  by 
companies  charged  the  concealed  Indians,  and  with  the 
bayonet  drove  them  hither  and  thither  at  every  charge. 
Only  a  temporary  relief  was  thus  attained,  however, 
for  the  Indians  turned  around  and  fought  with  as 

178 


Mississippi   Valley. 

much  determination  as  ever,  the  moment  the  pursuit 
stopped.  But  in  spite  of  discouragement;  and  in  spite 
of  fatigue,  heat  and  thirst,  the  men,  inspired  by  their 
leader,  fought  until  night  came,  and  then  with  their 
mouths  as  dry  as  ashes,  they  took  posts  as  guards,  or 
lay  down  to  sleep  around  the  wounded,  who  were  suf- 
fering from  tortures  only  a  trifle  less  than  the  Indians 
would  have  inflicted  at  the  stake.  It  is  a  story  worth 
telling  chiefly  because  of  the  magnificent  endurance 
of  these  men. 

At  daylight  the  Indians  came  with  renewed  fury, 
and  then  Bouquet  provided  a  trap  for  them.  He  or- 
dered the  two  companies  in  advance  to  fall  back  hastily 
as  if  a  retreat  of  the  whole  force  was  contemplated, 
while  he  concealed  other  squads  where  they  could  cover 
Math  their  muskets  the  space  abandoned.  The  Indians 
were  deceived,  and  with  yells  of  joy  rushed  in  a  thick 
mob  after  the  companies  that  seemed  to  retreat.  At 
the  right  moment  the  ambushed  squads  opened  fire  on 
the  flanks  of  the  mob,  and  then  charged  them  with 
the  bayonet. 

That  work  won  the  victory.  The  Indians  fled 
in  a  panic,  and  Bouquet  was  able  to  reach  Fort  Pitt 
without  further  mishap.  But  while  the  Indians  lost 
near  sixty  killed,  the  white  force  had  ii6  privates 
and  eight  officers  killed. 

The  much  greater  loss  of  the  whites  in  this  vic- 
tory is  worth  a  word  aside.  Consider  the  losses  at 
Venango  and  Presqu'  Isle;  consider  the  losses  at  the 
other  posts.  To  these  add  the  losses  (nowhere  stated, 
unfortunately),  that  were  suffered  during  the  raids. 
It  is  a  most  important  consideration.     Definite  figures 

179 


A  History  of  the 

are  unattainable,  but  Roosevelt  says  that  "in  Brad- 
dock's  War  the  borderers  are  estimated  to  have  suf- 
fered a  loss  of  fifty  souls  for  every  Indian  slain;  in 
Pontiac's  war  they  had  learned  to  defend  themselves 
better,  and  yet  the  ratio  is  probably  ten  to  one."  In 
Lord  Dunmore's  v^ar  the  ratio  did  not  rise  to  more 
than  three  whites  killed  for  every  Indian  life  taken, 
but  to  sum  up  all  the  slaughter  of  whites,  in  occupy- 
ing the  Mississippi  Valley,  it  is  fair  to  suppose  the 
losses  of  the  whites  out-numbered  those  of  the  Indians, 
by  at  least  four  or  five  to  one.  The  whites  paid  a 
frightful  price  for  the  negligence  and  brutal  greed  they 
exhibited  in  dealing  with  the  Indians.  The  universal 
law  of  compensation  has  been  written  in  blood  from 
the  Juniata  to  Jackson's  Hole  beside  the  Tetons.  We 
will  but  mention  the  penalty  the  whites  have  paid  in 
money — the  annual  fine,  as  one  may  say,  that  amounted 
in  the  year  ending  June  30,  1900,  to  $10,175,106.76, 
that  sum  being  the  amount  expended  for  "Indian  Af- 
fairs." 

It  was  Emerson  who  wrote  an  essay  on  the  Uni- 
versal Law  of  Compensation,  and  it  was  Carlyle  who 
said  of  a  certain  part  of  the  great  Anglo-Saxon  race 
that  they  numbered  27,000,000,  and  were  "mostly 
fools."  The  truth  of  this  last  statement  is  never  plain- 
er than  when  considering  the  story  of  the  Indian — un- 
less, indeed,  it  be  when  considering  what  our  present- 
day  critics  say  of  that  dour  old  Scotchman. 

The  relief  of  Fort  Pitt  by  Bouquet,  and  the  failure 
of  Pontiac  at  Detroit  disposed  the  Indians  to  peace, 
though  peace  was  not  made  immediately.  The  raiders 
in  Pennsylvania  retired  to  the  Muskingum.     A  royal 

180 


Mississippi   Valley. 

proclamation  was  issued  forbidding  absolutely  all 
white  settlements  in  the  Indian  country;  forbidding 
the  purchase  of  Indian  lands  by  private  persons,  and 
ordering  that  all  Indian  traders  take  out  licenses  and 
give  bonds  that  they  would  observe  certain  regula- 
tions providing  for  honest  dealing  with  the  red  men. 

Nevertheless  the  Indians  began  the  war  once  more 
in  the  spring  of  1764.  Pontiac  besieged  Detroit,  and 
the  raiders  came  to  the  frontier  homes  with  renewed 
fury. 

Accordingly  a  force  was  sent  up  the  great  lakes 
under  Col.  Bradstreet,  who  did  nothing  but  allow  the 
Indians  to  deceive  him  with  idle  promises.  Another 
force,  under  Colonel  Bouquet,  marched  to  Fort  Pitt. 
Three  wily  chiefs  came  to  meet  him,  bringing  such 
promises  as  had  deceived  Bradstreet,  but  Bouquet  ar- 
rested them  as  spies,  and  then  sent  one  home  to  tell 
the  tribes  that  only  sincerity  would  save  them.  As 
a  test  of  their  sincerity  he  sent  two  messengers  through 
the  wilderness  to  carry  letters  to  Bradstreet,  at  Detroit, 
and  he  told  the  Indians  that  if  these  messengers  did  not 
return  safely,  at  the  end  of  twenty  days,  the  two  chiefs 
held  as  hostages  w^ould  be  killed. 

Then  to  emphasize  his  words,  Bouquet  marched 
his  whole  force,  (1,500  men),  through  the  wilderness 
to  the  Muskingum  River,  where  he  arrived  near  the 
middle  of  October,  1764.  There  he  met  the  red  peace- 
makers. 

Bouquet  was  a  sincere  man,  and  because  he  was 
sincere  and  firm,  the  keen-eyed  Indians  saw  their  doom, 
if  they  failed  to  obey  his  will.  The  terms  he  imposed 
upon  them  were  strictly  fulfilled — the  promises  the  In- 

181 


A  History  of  the 

dians  made  to  him  were  kept  to  the  last  letter,  and  that 
is  a  most  important  fact  in  the  story  of  the  Indian.  A 
clear-eyed,  very  bad  child  was  the  Indian  of  1 764 — bad 
enough  to  seek  every  advantage  by  indirection,  and  to 
revel  in  cruelty,  but  clear-eyed  enough  to  know  a  man 
at  a  glance ;  and  good  enough,  withal,  to  meet  sincerity 
with  sincere  compliance. 

The  terms  imposed  were  simple.  The  Indians  were 
to  give  up  all  prisoners,  first  of  all,  and  then  send  a 
deputation  of  chiefs,  fully  authorized  to  make  a  treaty 
with  Sir  William  Johnson  in  the  Mohawk  Valley. 

The  prisoners  were  promptly  delivered,  and  a  most 
remarkable  gathering  they  made.  For  some  were  wild 
with  joy,  and  others  who  had  become  true  children  of 
the  forest,  were  sullen  and  exasperated.  There  were 
white  wives  who,  with  unspeakable  joy,  were  taken  in 
the  arms  of  their  husbands  who  had  come  with  Bou- 
quet to  find  them.  There  were  others  who,  with  downcast 
eyes,  because  of  half-red  children,  appealed  for  pity. 
There  were  white  girls  who  were  leaving  red  lovers 
whom  they  loved,  and  with  whom  they  fain  would 
stay,  and  there  were  white  boys  who  watched  for  a 
chance,  sure  to  come,  at  last,  for  a  return  to  the  wild 
free  life  of  the  wilderness.  But  all  together  were  taken 
to  Fort  Pitt,  and  the  war  was  ended. 

The  good  work  of  Col.  Bouquet,  a  sincere  man, 
firmly  established  the  British  power  over  the  Indians 
in  the  Mississippi  Valley,  and  thus  opened  the  way  for 
British  settlers. 


182 


DANIEL    BOONE. 
From  an  original  portrait  by  Harding. 


XI 


CROSSING  THE  RANGE. 

The  Origin  and  Character  of  the  Home  makers  who  first 
Passed  the  Alleghanies — Cumberland  Gap  Named — 
Work  of  the  Ohio  Company — George  Croghan  as  an 
Explorer — Kentucky  Purchased  from  the  Iroquois — 
Washington  as  a  Speculator  in  Ohio  River  Lands — 
Daniel  Boone  and  His  Adventures — When  the  "Di- 
vine Right  of  Self  Government"  was  first  Exercised 
West  of  the  Divide — Slaves  in  Great  Demand. 


At  the  end  of  Pontiac's  war,  the  British  colonists 
no  longer  feared  either  French  or  the  Indians.  Their 
migration  across  the  range  was  therefore  to  grow  in 
volume  with  an  increasing  ratio  from  the  day  peace 
was  announced.  But  before  relating  the  interesting 
facts  of  this  migration  it  is  well  worth  while  to  con- 
sider how  it  happened  that  such  a  westward  move- 

183 


A  History  of  the 

ment  came  into  existence  in  the  first  place.  Tlie  fact 
is  a  consideration  of  the  causes  of  this  migration  gives 
one  a  key  to  some  of  the  most  prominent  characteris- 
tics of  the  -settlers  in  the  Mississippi  Valley — and  of 
their  descendants. 

In  any  study  of  this  matter  it  is  learned  first  of  all 
that  the  people  who  were  found  flocking  to  the  moun- 
tain passes  were  for  the  greater  part,  either  emigrants, 
(with  little  money),  from  the  old  country,  (or  the  im- 
mediate descendants  of  such  emigrants),  and  they  land- 
ed in  ports  south  of  New  York.  They  came  from  coun- 
tries where  the  land  was  in  the  possession  of  the  gentry 
— where  the  possession  of  land,  in  fact,  created  a  class 
distinction — gave  the  land  owners  social  superiority. 
In  the  old  country  the  emigrants  had  learned  that  the 
possession  of  land  not  only  gave  social  elevation ;  it  was 
the  basis  of  physical  comfort  and  mental  ease.  But 
toil  as  they  might,  they  could  not  hope  to  obtain  pos- 
session of  so  much  as  a  single  acre  in  the  land  of  their 
birth. 

Over  the  sea,  however,  in  America,  there  was  wild 
free  land  in  breadths  beyond  their  comprehension.  It 
was  to  be  had  by  any  one  who  would  take  it  and  work 
it,  and  they  came  in  ship  loads  to  the  ports  of  the  colo- 
nies— 25,000  of  them  arrived  in  Delaware  Bay,  in  the 
course  of  two  years — in  order  to  secure  this  land. 

They  were  thinking  people  or  they  would  not  have 
seen  and  comprehended  the'  advantages  connected  with 
the  ownership  of  land.  They  were  ambitious,  energetic 
and  enterprising,  or  they  never  would  have  left  their 
old  homes  and  surroundings  to  migrate  to  a  new  coun- 
try. 

184 


Mississippi   Valley. 

When  they  landed  in  America  they  showed  forth 
other  admirable  characteristics.  There  were  breadths  of 
unoccupied  land — wide  breadths  a  plenty — east  of  the 
mountains,  but  these  sturdy  migrants  would  not  take 
it.  They  landed  in  the  Delaware  or  the  Chesapeake, 
and  a  brief  examination  of  the  people  and  the  condi- 
tions along  shore  showed  them  that  an  aristocratic 
class  dominated  that  region — landed  gentry  very  much 
like  those  left  behind  in  the  old  country,  even  though 
there  were  neither  dukes  nor  lords  to  be  found.  Under 
the  gentry  in  Virginia  were  negro  slaves.  Under  the 
gentry  in  Pennsylvania  were  a  "boorish  people — good 
farmers  who  cared  more  for  their  pigs  than  their  own 
comfort,  uniting  thrift  with  habits  that  scorned  educa- 
tion." That  these  migrants  would  not  associate  with 
either  the  negroes  or  the  boorish  people  who  scorned 
education  was  a  matter  of  course.  Having  no  means 
to  buy  estates  it  is  plain  that  they  could  not  have  joined 
the  landed  gentry,  but  it  is  also  a  fact  that  they  would 
not  have  done  so  even  if  it  had  been  possible.  For  in 
Virginia  the  dominant  people  were  Episcopalians;  in 
Pennsylvania  they  were  Quakers,  and  the  migrants 
were  Scotch  Presbyterians  who  were  ready  to  give 
reasons  for  the  faith  that  was  in  them.  Not  all  the  mi- 
grants were  Scotch  Presbyterians,  of  course.  There 
were  some  Huguenots  and  Palitinates,  and  many  were 
without  religious  scruples;  but  the  important  fact  is 
that  these  people  as  a  whole  were  driven  by  their  land 
hunger  and  religious  peculiarities — by  their  ambition 
and  their  determination  to  think  for  themselves — away 
from  the  coast,  where  they  landed,  to  the  freedom  of 
the  wilds. 

185 


A  History  of  the 

And  if  we  look  at  the  American  born  people,  (men 
like  Robertson  and  Boone),  who  flocked  across  the 
mountains,  we  will  find  that  the  feelings  which  urged 
them  to  seek  homes  in  the  wilderness  were  akin  to 
those  of  the  migrants  from  over  the  sea. 

Rightly  considered,  this  westward  movement  marks 
one  of  the  most  important  epochs  in  the  development 
of  the  race.  The  migration  was  due  to  the  sprouting 
belief  that  all  men  were  born  free  and  equal,  and  were 
endowed  with  inalienable  rights.  It  was  a  manifesta- 
tion of  the  spirit  that  gave  the  world  the  American 
JMation. 

\ '  There  was,  indeed,  one  slight  obstacle  in  the  way 
of  the  home  seekers  as  they  toiled  through  the  passes 
— the  King's  Proclamation  forbidding  it,  and  forbid- 
ding also  all  private  purchases  of  lands  from  the  In- 
dians. The  real  objects  of  this  proclamation,  as  ex- 
plained by  Lord  Hillsborough,  President  of  the  Board 
of  Trade,  were  as  follows: 

"We  take  leave  to  remind  your  Lordships  of  that  principle 
which  was  adopted  by  this  Board,  and  approved  and  confirmed 
by  his  Majesty,  immediately  after  the  Treaty  of  Paris,  viz.: 
the  confining  the  western  extent  of  settlements  to  such  a  distance 
from  the  seacoast  as  that  those  settlements  should  lie  within 
easy  reach  of  the  trade  and  commerce  of  this  kingdom,  .  .  . 
and  also  of  the  exercise  of  that  authority  and  jurisdiction  which 
was  conceived  to  be  necessary  for  the  preservation  of  the  colo- 
nies in  due  subordination  to,  and  dependence  upon,  the  mother 
country.  And  these  we  apprehend  to  have  been  the  two  capital 
objects  of  His  Majesty's  proclamation  of  the  7th  of  October, 
1763.  .  .  .  The  great  object  of  colonizing  upon  the  continent 
of  North  America  has  been  to  improve  and  extend  the  com- 
merce, navigation  and  manufactures  of  this  kingdom.  .  .  . 
It  does  appear  to  us  that  the  extension  of  the  fur  trade  depends 
entirely  upon  the  Indians  being  undisturbed  in  the  possession 
of  their  hunting   grounds,   and   that   all   colonizing   does    in    its 

186 


Mississippi   Valley. 

nature,  and  must  in  its  consequences,  operate  to  the  prejudice 
of  that  branch  of  commerce.  .  .  Let  the  savages  enjoy  their 
deserts  in  quiet.  Were  they  driven  from  their  forests  the  peltry- 
trade  would  decrease." 

It  had  been  openly  asserted  in  England  that  if  the 
Colonies  were  relieved  from  the  fear  of  Indian  aggres- 
sions they  "would  cover  the  continent,  become  a  great 
nation,  manufacture  their  own  goods,  and  eventually 
declare  themselves  independent." 

In  the  colonies,  however,  the  proclamation  was  not 
taken  seriously.  It  was  considered  as  a  collection  of 
soft  words  intended  to  allay  the  irritation  of  the  In- 
dians. Washington  said  of  it,  that  it  was  not  intended 
as  a  permanent  law  governing  the  territory  west  of 
the  Alleghanies. 

Therefore,  obeying  the  impulse  of  a  dominant  race, 
the  British-Americans  moved  on.  We  can  see  now 
that  the  race  progress  through  the  valley  of  the  Mis- 
sissippi was  inevitable — not  to  be  stopped  by  any  earth- 
ly power.  A  little  consideration  of  the  history  of  man 
shows  that  the  spread  of  a  dominant  race  is  not  only 
inevitable,  but  that  it  ought  to  be  so  if  man  is  to  con- 
tinue to   elevate  himself. 

And  yet,  in  spreading  through  the  INIississippi  Val- 
ley— in  spreading  over  every  part  of  the  continent,  in 
fact — the  white  men  wronged  the  red  men  beyond  the 
power  of  words  to  describe,  and  thereby  inevitably 
injured  themselves  vastly  more  than  they  injured  the 
red  men. 

If  a  brief  consideration  be  given  to  this  matter, 
it  will  appear  that  the  spread  of  the  white  men  over  the 
Great  Valley  was  not  necessarily  in  itself  an  injury  to 
the  Indian.     The  whites  did  necessarily  take  from  the 

187 


A  History  of  the 

Indian  his  hunting  grounds,  but  enough  has  been  said, 
already  perhaps,  to  show  that  the  Indian  ought  to  have 
been  kept  out  of  hunting  grounds  from  the  earHest  pos- 
sible moment. 

In  short  it  was  not  in  the  taking  of  lands  that  the 
Indian  was  wronged,  it  was  in  the  manner  of  the  tak- 
ing. 

We  are  venturing  once  more  on  an  idle  speculation, 
but  recalling  the  fact  that  at  Gnadenhutten  (and  else- 
where by  the  Quakers),  wild  Indians  were  turned  into 
peace-loving,  stump-grubbing  farmers,  we  can  see  now 
that  the  white  men,  if  united  in  the  project,  might  have 
made  a  Gnadenhutten  of  every  red  village  on  the  con- 
tinent. Let  this  statement  be  considered  without  pre- 
judice. Bad  as  the  Indians  had  become  after  150  years 
association  with  the  worst  men  of  the  white  race,  it  was 
possible,  by  united  and  sincere  efforts,  even  in  1764,  to 
make  a  Gnadenhutten  of  every  Indian  village  in  the 
land.  Because  the  white  men  were  of  a  superior  race, 
they  were  the  natural  guardians  of  the  red  men.  These 
words  are,  perhaps,  the  mere  prating  of  a  sentimental- 
ist, but  because  the  w^hites  were  of  a  superior  race,  it 
was  their  duty  to  place  the  red  men,  at  whatever  cost, 
in  permanent  homes  as  corn-growers.  But  they 
shirked  their  duty — they  refused  to  take  up  the  "white 
man's  burden" — and  they  have  been  compelled  to  pay 
for  their  neglect  a  price  in  blood  and  treasure  so  great 
that  words  are  inadequate  to  tell  how  great  the  price 
is.  Indeed,  instead  of  trying  to  settle  the  Indians  on 
farm  lands,  there  are  records  showing  that  punish- 
ments were  provided  for  subjugated  Indians  who  failed 
to  bring  in  certain  stated  quantities  of  skins  of  wild 

188 


Mississippi   Valley. 

animals.  It  is  a  matter  worth  repeated  considerations, 
when  we  think  of  the  inferior  peoples  over  whom  we 
are  yet  guardians. 

But  this  is  not  to  withhold  sympathy  from  the  fron- 
tier home  maker  in  his  battles ;  his  sufferings  were  often 
heartbreaking.  He  was  only  fulfilling  the  destiny  of 
his  race,  for  in  him  the  forward  impulse  was  strongest. 
The  frontiersmen  were  the  instruments  by  which  the 
race  worked  out  its  destiny.  It  was  their  part  to  meet 
and  push  on  the  red  men,  to  endure  the  hardships  of 
forest  life,  and  to  turn  the  wilderness  into  home  lands 
for  a  more  (if  not  wholly),  civilized  people.  They 
were  the  advance  guard  sent  ahead  of  the  main  army ; 
they  were  to  be  sacrificed — shot  down — for  the  good 
of  the  many.  How  they  did  their  duty  shall  now  be 
told. 

Few  of  the  explorers  need  be  named.  It  was  in 
1748  that  Dr.  Thomas  Walker,  "surveyor  and  man  of 
mark,"  reached  the  head  of  Cumberland  River,  and 
two  years  later  he  passed  through  the  Gap.  His  party 
killed  "thirteen  bufifaloes,  eight  elks,  fifty-three  bears, 
two  deer  and  150  turkeys."  The  abundance  of  all 
kinds  of  game  found  is,  perhaps,  the  most  important 
feature  of  the  story  of  Walker's  expedition,  and  of 
others  like  it;  for  every  frontiersman  knew  that  these 
wild  animals  swarmed  only  where  their  food  was 
abundant,  and  that  their  food  was  abundant  where  the 
land  was  rich. 

It  was  in  1749  that  the  Ohio  Company  of  Virginia, 
the  organization  of  capitalists  already  mentioned,  who 
had  tried  to  acquire  a  half  million  acres  of  land  on  the 
Ohio  River  for  the  purpose  of  speculation,  now  did 

189 


A  History  of  the 

some  work.  They  employed  Col.  Thomas  Cresap,  a 
frontiersman  and  trader  living  on  the  headwaters  of 
the  Potomac,  to  mark  a  trail  fit  for  pack  horses,  from 
where  Cumberland,  Md.,  now  stands,  over  the  moun- 
tains to  the  forks  of  the  Ohio.  A  friendly  Indian 
named  Nemacolin,  who  lived  with  Cresap,  did  the 
work.  He  blazed  the  trees  along  the  route  followed 
by  the  Indians  when  crossing  the  mountains  by  that 
pass;  that  is  the  Indian  with  a  tomahawk,  cut  patches 
of  bark  from  all  the  trees  along  the  route.  It  was  this 
path  that  was  eventually  opened  as  a  road  fit  for 
wagons  by  the  axemen  with  Braddock's  army,  and  it 
was  thereafter  known  as  Braddock's  Road.  The  great 
National  Road,  made  the  next  century,  followed  this 
trail  in  part. 

On  September  i6,  1750,  Christopher  Gist,  a  not- 
able Indian  trader,  was  commissioned  by  the  "Ohio 
Company"  to  go  over  the  range  and  prospect  for  lands 
on  which  they  could  locate  their  claim  for  200,000 
acres.  His  journey  took  him  through  the  central  and 
southern  part  of  the  State  of  Ohio  as  far  as  the  mouth 
of  the  Scioto,  whence  he  crossed  to  the  Kentucky  side, 
went  up  the  Licking,  climbed  over  the  divide  to  the 
Kentucky  River,  up  which  he  traveled  to  the  Clinch, 
and  so  home  by  the  way  of  the  New  River,  and  the  head 
of  the  Roanoke.  As  a  result  of  his  explorations,  the 
Ohio  Company  determined  to  locate  their  claims  on 
the  south  side  of  the  Ohio,  and  Gist  was  sent,  in  April, 
1752,  among  the  Indians  to  induce  them  to  move  their 
villages  to  the  lands  which  the  company  purposed  se- 
curing from  them.  In  a  dim  way,  this  company  saw  the 
right  method  of  dealing  with  the  red  men.    They  meant 

190 


Mississippi   Valley. 

to  turn  him  from  a  roving  to  a  sedentary  life,  for  the 
purpose  of  trade  first,  of  course,  but  ultimately  that 
he  might  become  an  agriculturalist  and  a  citizen. 

Dr.  Walker,  who  named  Cumberland  Gap  for  the 
Duke  of  Cumberland,  explored  a  part  of  the  Kentucky 
River  in  1758,  as  agent  of  a  British  land  company,  of 
which  the  Duke  was  chief  patron,  and  he  gave  this 
river  the  name  of  Louisa  in  honor  of  the  Duchess — a 
name  that  is  perpetuated  only  by  the  name  of  the  Ken- 
tucky town  of  Louisa. 

After  this,  Virginia  sent  Joshua  Fry,  Lunsford 
Lomax  and  James  Patton,  with  Gist,  to  Logstown, 
when  a  treaty  was  made  wherein  the  Indians  agreed 
not  to  molest  any  settlements  that  might  be  made  on 
the  Virginia  side  of  the  Ohio.  Then  Gist  was  ordered 
to  build  a  fort  and  lay  out  a  town  site  on  the  Virginia 
side  of  the  river,  two  miles  below  the  forks,  but  before 
this  work  was  accomplished,  the  French  advent  on  the 
head  of  the  river  stopped  all  further  progress  toward 
settlement. 

After  Pontiac's  war  ended,  and  while  yet  the 
French  were  in  possession  of  the  Illinois  posts, 
George  Croghan,  now  deputy  Indian  agent  under  Sir 
William  Johnson,  was  sent  through  the  country  north- 
west of  the  Ohio  River  to  prepare  the  red  men  for 
British  domination.  It  was  known  to  be  a  dangerous 
mission,  for  Pontiac  was  still  alive  and  unappeased, 
and  the  French  residents  of  the  region  naturally  hated 
the  British. 

The  party  left  Fort  Pitt  on  May  15,  1765,  and 
without  adventures  worth  noting  here,  passed  down 
to  the  mouth  of  the  Wabash  River,  where  they  arrived 

191 


A  History  of  the 

on  June  6,  and  camped  in  a  fortification  that  Croghan 
supposed  to  be  of  Indian  origin.  There,  at  dayhght, 
on  the  morning  of  the  8th,  they  were  attacked  by  a 
party  of  Kickapoo  and  other  Wabash  Vahey 
Indians,  two  white  men  and  three  Indians  of 
Croghan's  party  were  killed  and  everybody  else 
wounded  (including  Croghan),  except  two  white  men 
and  one  Indian.  The  Kickapoos  then  rushed  in  and 
plundered  the  camp. 

When  told  that  the  Iroquois  would  come  to  take 
vengeance,  they  excused  themselves  by  saying  that 
"the  French  had  spirited  them  up,"  and  they  appeared 
to  be  alarmed,  but  they  kept  the  plunder  they  had  taken. 

After  some  discussion  of  the  matter,  the  Kickapoos 
took  Croghan  and  his  party  as  prisoners  to  Vincennes, 
where  "about  eighty  or  ninety  French  families"  were 
"settled  on  the  east  side  of  the  river,  being  one  of  the 
finest  situations  that  can  be  found,"  to  quote  one  of 
Croghan's  journals.  They  were  "an  idle,  lazy  people, 
a  parcel  of  renegades  from  Canada,  and  much  worse 
than  the  Indians,"  in  Croghan's  opinion.  He  had  little 
reason  to  think  well  of  them,  for,  before  Croghan's 
eyes,  they  traded  baubles  and  red  paint  to  the  Indians 
for  the  tools  and  other  valuables  of  which  Croghan 
had  been  robbed,  including  gold  and  silver  coin.  One 
trader  sold  a  pound  of  vermillion  paint  for  ten  of 
Croghan's  half  Johannes  (a  gold  coin  worth  $8.25), 
and  jeered  at  Croghan  after  the  trade  was  completed. 

However,  Croghan  was  released,  after  a  time,  and 
was  able  to  hold  a  number  of  important  councils  with 
the  Indians,  including  one  with  Pontiac,  who  then 
agreed  to  keep  the  peace.     Pontiac  had  raged  to  and 

192 


GEORGE   III.,    KING    OF   ENGLAND. 
From  a  portrait  made  just  before  his  accession  to  the  throne  (1760). 


Mississippi   Valley. 

from  Detroit  to  Ft.  Chartres  in  a  vain  effort  to  rouse 
the  Indians  and  French  to  make  war  again.  He  had 
"sent  an  embassy  of  warriors  down  the  Mississippi, 
with  an  immense  war-belt,  with  instructions  to  show 
it  at  every  Indian  village  on  the  river,"  and  to  get  aid 
of  the  French  at  New  Orleans ;  but  all  in  vain,  for  the 
French  had  made  peace  with  the  British.  It  was  when 
this  last  hope  had  expired  that  Pontiac  made  peace.  It 
was  on  August  28,  1765,  at  Detroit,  that  this  council 
was  held,  Pontiac  made  a  speech,  in  which  he  said: 
"Father,  we  have  all  smoked  out  of  the  pipe  of  peace. 
It's  your  children's  pipe,  and  as  the  war  is  all  over,  and 
the  Great  Spirit  and  Giver  of  Light,  who  has  made  the 
earth  and  everything  therein,  has  brought  us  all  to- 
gether *  *  *  I  declare  to  all  nations  that  I  had 
settled  my  peace  with  you  before  I  came  here."  ( N.  Y. 
Colonial  Mems.,  vii.,  p.  783.)  In  1768  the  aggres- 
sive old  chief  was  assassinated  near  St.  Louis  by  an 
Illinois  Indian  who  had  been  hired  by  a  trader  named 
Williams  to  do  the  deed.  The  price  paid  was  a  barrel 
of  rum. 

At  the  treaty  meeting  which  followed  the  Pontiac 
war  (held  by  Sir  William  Johnson,  at  the  German 
Flats,  Herkimer  Co.,  N.  Y.),  the  Indians  proposed 
that  the  Alleghany  River  be  established  as  a  definite 
and  permanent  boundary  between  the  white  men  and 
the  red.  This  offer  was  evaded,  but  on  October  24, 
1768,  delegates  from  the  Six  Nations,  the  Delawares 
and  the  Shawnees,  met  at  Ft.  Stanwix  (Rome,  N.  Y.), 
and  here  a  boundary  line  was  agreed  upon.  It  began  in 
the  Ohio  River  at  the  mouth  of  the  Tennessee,  passed 
up  the  Ohio  to  Ft.  Pitt,  up  the  Alleghany  to  Kittan- 

193 


A  History  of  the 

ning,  and  thence  across  to  the  Susquehanna.  These 
Indians  abandoned  all  claim  on  the  land  lying  south 
and  east  of  that  line.  The  Six  Nation  deputies  signed 
the  treaty  for  all  Indians,  but,  the  Shawnee  and  Dela- 
ware chiefs,  while  orally  agreeing  to  it,  held  a  mental 
reservation  in  the  matter  that  was  troublesome  later. 
The  price  paid  the  Indians  for  the  cession  was  £  10,430, 
7s,  6d — 200  boat  loads  of  goods  brought  up  the  Mo- 
hawk. It  was  by  this  payment  that  the  Indian  title  to 
Kentucky,  a  slice  of  Tennessee,  and  the  Ohio  water 
shed  of  Virginia  was  extinguished,  save  only  as  the 
Cherokees  claimed  part  of  that  region.  The  Cherokees 
did  not  sell  out  until  1775,  though  it  is  worth  noting 
that  the  Cherokees  made  a  treaty  at  Hardlabor,  S.  C, 
on  October  14,  1768,  by  wdiich  they  ceded  the  lands 
between  the  Great  Kanawha  and  the  Ohio. 

When  Pontiac's  warriors  came  to  Fort  Pitt,  100 
women  and  children,  the  families  of  home  makers, 
were  within,  as  already  noted.  When  this  war  ended 
the  blue  smoke  was  already  rising  serenely  from  the 
stick-and-mud  chimneys  of  the  cabins  they  had  built 
at  Redstone  (now  Brownsville,  Pa.),  on  the  Monon- 
gahela.  The  King's  proclamation,  limiting  the  colonial 
settlements  to  the  slope  east  of  the  mountains,  had 
ordered  all  settlers  west  of  the  mountains  to  return  to 
the  east  side.  The  Pennsylvania  legislature  passed 
bills  for  the  removal  of  these  settlers,  and  sent  com- 
missioners to  enforce  the  acts.  One  bill  provided  the 
death  penalty  for  all  who  should  fail  to  remove  as 
ordered.  These  acts  were  passed  in  sincerity,  and  the 
commissioners  tried  to  enforce  them.  But  it  was  work 
against  a  law  of  nature,  and  it  failed,  as  all  such  work 

194 


Mississippi   Valley. 

must  fail.  Even  the  Indians  interfered  to  keep 
white  settlers  west  of  the  mountains. 

The  purchase  of  lands  by  the  treaty  of  Fort  Stan- 
wix  (November  5,  1768),  was  the  first  act  in  the 
gate-opening  that  let  the  white  settlers  legally  across 
the  mountains,  to  make  homes  in  the  Ohio  Valley. 
A  number  of  companies  were  formed,  about  this  time, 
to  acquire  lands  in  the  Ohio  Valley  and  people  them. 
Franklin  was  interested  in  one.  Washington,  the  Lees, 
and  other  prominent  people  were  in  another  that  ab- 
sorbed the  old  Ohio  company.  Not  one  is  worth  more 
than  mention  here,  because  none  of  them  accomplished 
anything  beyond  advertising  the  desirability  of  the 
lands  of  the  Ohio  Valley.  Still,  the  agitation  created 
by  the  application  for  grants  evolved  one  practical  Act 
in  Council  known  as  the  Walpole  Grant,  by  which  the 
King  gave,  on  August  14,  1772,  a  large  tract  of  land 
west  of  the  Alleghanies,  which  w^as  to  be  erected  into 
a  new  colony.  Sir  William  Johnson,  the  Indian  Agent, 
was  instructed  to  inform  the  Indians  that  a  new  colony 
was  to  be  formed  in  the  Ohio  Valley.  This  colony-on- 
paper  (for  it  was  never  organized),  is  commonly  called 
Vandalia.  Its  capital  was  to  be  located  on  the  Great 
Kanawha.  It  was  to  be  organized  to  give  a  definite 
western  limit  to  the  seaboard  colonies  that  were  already 
in  the  ferment  which  led  to  the  War  of  the  Revolution. 
But  before  the  work  of  organization  could  be  com- 
pleted, a  plan  for  placating  the  French  inhabitants  of 
Canada  was  turned  to  the  purpose  of  limiting  the  sea- 
board colonies. 

The  French  had  petitioned,  from  time  to  time,  for 
a  restoration  of  their  old-time  laws  and  religious  privi- 

195 


A  History  of  the 

leges.  By  an  act  of  Parliament,  approved  June  22, 
1774,  known  as  the  Quebec  Bill,  these  privileges  of 
law  and  religion  were  granted,  and  a  vast  region  west 
of  the  Alleghanies  was  made  a  part  of  the  Royal  Prov- 
ince of  Quebec.  The  Bill  was  to  take  effect  in  1775, 
but  the  work  of  George  Rogers  Clark  in  the  Revolu- 
tion, following  on  Lord  Dunmore's  war,  to  be  des- 
cribed further  on,  ended  that  business. 

In  the  meantime  (1767  and  1770),  Washington 
had  gone  down  the  Ohio  twice  to  prospect  for  good 
land,  and  with  such  success  that  he  eventually  acquired 
through  his  claims  as  a  soldier,  and  by  the  purchase 
of  other  claims,  no  less  than  32,373  acres  of  land  in 
great  plots,  besides  a  small  plot  of  587  acres  located 
fifteen  miles  below  Wheeling.  He  had  a  total  water 
front  of  sixteen  miles  on  the  Ohio,  and  forty  miles 
on  the  Great  Kanawha.  He  estimated  the  value  of 
this  land  at  $3.33  per  acre,  but  it  is  to  be  noted  that 
he  had  great  trouble  to  keep  squatters  off  his  holdings. 

But  the  man  whose  name  is  best  known  in  connec- 
tion with  the  movement  of  settlers  across  the  Alle- 
ghanies was  Daniel  Boone.  Daniel  Boone,  the  fourth 
son  of  Squire  and  Sarah  Boone,  was  born  on  Novem- 
ber 2,  1734,  in  Oley  Township,  Berkes  County,  Pa. 
The  father  owned  250  acres  of  land  on  Owatin  Creek, 
"some  eight  miles  southeast  of  the  present  city  of  Read- 
ing." (Thwaite's  "Daniel  Boone.")  It  was  then  a 
frontier  region.  In  1750  the  Boones  sold  out  their 
holdings  In  Pennsylvania  and  moved  to  the  Yadkin 
Valley,  in  North  Carolina,  where  they  arrived  after  a 
leisurely,  halting  journey,  in  the  fall  of  1751. 

On  their  way  they  stopped  at  a  small  settlement 
196 


Mississippi   Valley. 

made  on  New  River,  just  west  of  the  Alleghany  divide, 
but  well  within  the  limits  of  Virginia.  Some  Penn- 
sylvanians  had  staked  claims  there  in  1748.  They  had 
gone  at  about  the  time  Dr.  Walker  was  exploring  the 
Cumberland  Gap,  and  they  made  the  first  settlement 
west  of  the  divide,  though  by  no  means  west  of  the 
Alleghany  mountain  system. 

In  1755,  Daniel  Boone  joined  as  a  teamster,  a  party 
of  neighbors  who  went  up  to  Pennsylvania,  to  help 
Braddock  drive  the  French  from  the  forks  of  the  Ohio. 
It  was  during  this  campaign  that  young  Boone 
met  John  Finley.  Finley,  as  a  fur  buyer,  had  been  in 
the  Kentucky  region,  and  as  far  down  the  Ohio  at  the 
falls.  His  stories  of  the  game  to  be  found  there  greatly 
interested  young  Boone,  for  he  was  already  a  notable 
woodsman  and  hunter,  and  his  interest  was  the  greater 
because  Finley  told  him  that  the  Kentucky  grounds 
were  to  be  reached  easily  by  following  the  well-known 
buffalo  trail  through  the  Cumberland  Gap.  Accord- 
ingly, after  Boone  reached  home  he  extended  his  hunt- 
ing trips  westward,  but  it  was  years  before  he  went  to 
Kentucky,  for  on  reaching  home  he  was  married  to  a 
handsome,  black-eyed  Irish  girl  named  Rebecca  Bryan. 
As  early  as  1760,  however,  he  had  hunted  on  a 
branch  of  the  Watauga,  now  called  Boone  Creek,  where 
a  beech  tree  was  marked : 

D.  Boon 
CillED  A.  Bar         on 
tree 
in        THE 
yEAR 

1760 

197 


A  History  of  the 

In  1 76 1  he  accompanied  an  expedition  under  Capt. 
Hugh  Waddell  that  went  into  the  Cherokee  country 
to  avenge  raids  on  the  whites.  In  1766  Benjamin 
Cutbirth,  John  Stuart,  John  Baker  and  John  Ward,  all 
neighbors  of  Boone  on  the  Yadkin,  crossed  the  Alle- 
ghanies  on  an  exploring  expedition,  during  which 
they  reached  the  Mississippi,  and  this  was  the  first 
expedition  to  do  that  of  which  there  is  any  record. 
They  gathered  a  harvest  of  skins,  bear's  oil  and  dried 
meat,  which  they  sold  at  good  prices  in  New  Orleans. 
It  was  the  first  cargo  of  Kentucky  produce  sent  down 
the  Great  River  by  British-Americans. 

In  the  fall  of  the  same  year  Boone  and  William 
Hill  "crossed  the  mountain  wall,  were  in  the  valleys 
of  the  Holsten  and  the  Clinch,  and  reached  the  head  wa- 
ters of  the  West  Fork  of  the  Big  Sandy,"  (Thwaites). 
The  winter  was  passed  at  a  salt  lick  ten  miles  west  of 
the  site  of  the  modern  town  of  Prestonburg,  Kentucky. 

In  the  autumn  of  1768  John  Finley  came  to  the 
Yadkin  as  a  peddler  and  remained  all  winter  with 
Boone.  Boone  had  found  game  a  plenty  in  the  water 
shed  of  the  Big  Sandy,  but  the  forest  was  not  to  his 
liking.  In  talking  the  matter  over  with  Finley,  how- 
ever, the  latter  proposed  an  expedition  to  the  country 
further  west,  to  be  reached  by  a  well-worn  buffalo 
trail  through  Cumberland  Gap,  and  after  the  crops  had 
been  planted  in  the  spring  of  1769,  Boone,  Finley,  John 
Stuart,  Joseph  Holden,  James  Mooney  and  William 
Cooley,  with  the  best  outfit  known  to  the  frontier,  went 
to  a  tributary  of  the  Kentucky  River,  called  Station 
Camp  Creek,  (Estill  County,  Kentucky),  and  built  a 
camp.     They  were  there,  not  as  explorers,  but  as  skin 

198 


Mississippi   Valley. 

hunters.  They  were  very  successful  until  December  22, 
when  Indians  captured  and  robbed  them,  and  then, 
after  warning  them  to  leave  the  country,  set  them  free. 

All  but  Boone  and  Stuart  left.  These  two  who 
remained  were  afterwards  joined  by  Squire  Boone,  a 
brother  of  Daniel,  and  Alexander  Neely.  Eventually, 
(February,  1770),  Stuart  failed  to  return  to  the  Camp 
— just  why  is  not  known, — but  Daniel  Boone  found  his 
skeleton  in  a  hollow  sycamore  tree  five  years  later.  He 
may  have  been  wounded  by  Indians  from  whom  he 
escaped  only  to  die  in  his  hiding  place.  His  skeleton 
was  identified  by  his  powder  horn. 

Being  frightened  by  Stuart's  disappearance,  Neely 
went  home.  The  Boone  brothers  remained  until  May, 
when  Squire  went  to  the  settlements  with  their  accumu- 
lated skins,  and  Daniel  remained  alone  for  three 
months,  sleeping  in  caves,  in  the  cane-brakes,  or  wher- 
ever a  good  hiding  place  could  be  found.  After  Squire 
returned  with  fresh  supplies,  the  brothers  killed  another 
lot  of  skins  which  Squire  carried  to  the  settlements, 
leaving  Daniel  alone  in  the  woods  once  more.  In  fact 
it  was  not  until  the  spring  of  1771  that  Boone  returned 
home.  He  had  been  for  two  years  in  the  Kentucky 
wilderness,  and  had  explored  the  fertile  region  as  far 
as  the  falls,  (Louisville). 

It  was  the  adventurous  spirit  of  Boone,  thus  shown, 
rather  than  what  he  accomplished  during  these  two 
years,  that  gave  him  immediate  fame.  For  the  Indians, 
as  Boone's  experience  proved,  were  hostile,  in  spite 
of  the  treaty  of  Fort  Stanwix.  Boone  for  two  years 
braved  their  wrath,  and  for  months  at  a  stretch,  he 
was  absolutely  alone  in  the  wilderness.    It  was  an  ad- 

199 


A  History  of  the 

venture  that  made  the  strongest  possible  appeal  to  the 
daring  spirits  among  the  frontiersmen  on  the  east  slope 
of  the  Alleghanies.  That  his  accounts  of  the  number  of 
wild  animals  he  had  seen  stirred  the  people  who  heard 
them  scarcely  need  be  said. 

Daniel  Boone,  it  may  be  said  here,  was  the  typical 
frontier  explorer,  rather  than  the  typical  home-builder. 
He  was  one  of  many  good  explorers.  He  founded 
Boonesborough,  as  the  agent  of  Col.  Richard  Hender- 
son, as  shall  be  told  further  on,  but  he  did  not  settle 
down  permanently,  either  as  a  farmer  or  a  village  resi- 
dent. He  moved  on,  and  died  at  last  in  Missouri — on 
the  frontier — in  1820  (September  26).  As  one  who 
blazed  the  trail  he  deserves  fame.  And  having  found 
a  biographer  (John  Filson), — a  reporter,  literally,  who 
took  notes  at  various  interviews,  and  published  the 
story  in  1784 — Boone  attained  the  recognition  he  de- 
served. 

The  home-builders,  however,  were  among,  or  on, 
the  heels  of  the  explorers,  and  none  of  them  was  more 
notable  than  James  Robertson.  A  North  Carolinian, 
he,  and  his  parents  were  so  poor  that  they  had  been  un- 
able to  send  him  to  school.  He  could  not  read  or  write 
when  he  married,  but  he  got  a  wife  who  would  teach 
him,  and  in  every  way  take  part  in  his  career.  Finding 
few  chances  of  rising  in  the  world  among  the  settle- 
ments of  North  Carolina,  Robertson,  early  in  1770, 
took  his  rifle  and  a  bag  of  corn,  and  went  afoot  over 
the  range. 

On  reaching  Boone's  Creek,  he  found  one  William 
Bean  making  a  home.  Bean  had  been  of  the  party  in 
that  hunting  trip  when  Boone  "CillED  A.  Bar"  in 

200 


Mississippi    P' alley. 

1760,  and  had  liked  the  country  so  well  that  he  had 
come  with  his  family  to  make  a  home  there. 

Robertson  selected  a  home  site  not  far  from  Bean's, 
cleared  a  patch,  planted  it  with  corn,  attended  it  until 
ripe,  (living,  the  while,  on  game),  harvested  it,  and 
having  thus  prepared  in  the  wilderness,  sufficient  food 
for  a  small  party  of  friends,  as  well  as  for  his  own  fami- 
ly, he  stored  it  away  and  went  to  his  home  in  North 
Carolina.  The  next  spring,  March,  1771,  he  came  back 
to  the  Watauga  with  a  party  that  numbered  eighty  men, 
women  and  children — sixteen  families.  These  people 
were  going  into  the  wilderness,  trusting  in  the  corn 
Robertson  had  stored,  and  in  their  rifles,  for  their  food, 
until  another  crop  could  be  harvested.  They  were  look- 
ing for  no  other  neighbor  than  William  Bean,  already 
there,  but  as  they  descended  the  western  side  of  the 
range,  they  found  ten  cabins  scattered  along  the  stream, 
with  men  swinging  the  axe  in  the  forest  round  about, 
or  planting  corn,  while  the  women  sang  songs  over 
their  house  work,  and  the  children  played  at  the  work 
of  clearing  the  land  by  gathering  brush  and  building 
fires.  A  party  had  come  from  Fairfax  County,  Vir- 
ginia, and  seldom  have  home-builders  been  more  joy- 
fully surprised  than  those  under  Robertson. 

This  settlement  was  made  near  where  Elizabeth- 
town,  Carter  County,  Tenn.,  now  stands.  Robert- 
son's house  stood  near  the  head  of  the  long  island 
found  there  in  the  Watauga.  Though  not  the  first 
west  of  the  divide,  by  many  years,  it  was  one  of  the 
most  important  in  the  history  of  the  valley. 

These  pioneers  had  come  to  make  homes  about  300 
miles  from  the  "settlements."  They  supposed  they  were 

201 


A  History  of  the 

yet  in  Virginia,  but  when  the  Virginia  line  was  sur- 
veyed out  by  Anthony  Bledsoe,  in  1771,  they  found 
themselves  in  a  legal  no-man's  land.  For  North  Caro- 
lina was  then  in  a  state  of  anarchy,  owing  to  the  re- 
volt of  the  people  against  Governor  Tryon,  and  they 
were  beyond  the  bounds  of  the  lands  bought  of  the 
Indians  at  Fort  Stanwix. 

Something  of  the  story  of  this  No-Man's  settle- 
ment must  be  told.  The  settlers  soon  found  frontier 
desperadoes  coming  over  the  range — men  who  fled 
from  the  old  settlements  to  escape  the  penalty  of  crime. 

Loving  order  and  hating  anarchy,  the  settlers  got 
together  and  exercised  the  "divine  right  of  self-govern- 
ment." This  right  was  exercised  for  four  years  be- 
fore the  Declaration  of  Independence.  In  1772  they 
held  a  convention,  signed  articles  of  association  for 
good  government,  and  elected  thirteen  commissioners 
to  enforce  these  self-made  laws — "the  first  written 
compact  for  civil  government  west  of  the  Alleghanies." 
It  was  an  efficient  government,  too,  in  spite  of  the 
fact  that  it  had  no  legal  existence.  It  was  good,  that 
is  to  say,  because  the  men  who  governed  were  entirely 
sincere  in  their  desire  to  promote  the  public  welfare, 
and  they  did  not  mistake  selfish  or  private  ends  for  the 
public  good.  To  secure  order  they  regarded  justice, 
but  not  the  forms  found  necessary  in  older  commu- 
nities. A  horse  thief,  for  instance,  was  hanged  four 
days  after  his  arrest.  Enough  time  was  taken  to  defi- 
nitely ascertain  the  facts,  but  no  time  was  wasted, 
once  the  facts  were  learned.  This  self-organized  gov- 
ernment, being  honestly  administered,  preserved  order 
and  compelled  justice  in  this  community  in  spite  of 

202 


Mississippi   Valley. 

criminals  and  vagabonds  that  fled  to  the  mountains 
from  the  alongshore  settlements.  The  love  of  order 
shown  by  these  frontier  home-builders  has  been  deemed 
worthy  of  thehighest  praise.  No  one  has  ever  denied  the 
praise  due,  and  no  one  is  likely  to  do  so.  But  it  may 
be  worth  while  pointing  out  to  the  lynch-law  loving 
people  of  the  United  States  that  the  praise  given  to 
Robertson,  Sevier  and  Campbell  has  been  ill-considered 
in  that  it  was  unmodified.  Preserving  order  by  lynch 
law  was  praiseworthy  only  because  it  was  the  only 
resource  of  the  order-loving  frontiersmen.  Such  a  use 
of  the  rifle  or  halter  was  a  frightful  necessity,  and  it 
carried  in  its  wake  the  long  line  of  disgraceful  outrages 
on  human  rights  that  have  blackened  the  history  of 
the  Nation  since  that  time.  Let  it  be  repeated  for  the 
sake  of  emphasis  that  the  Americans  are  the  only  nation 
of  lynchers,  because  they  were  obliged,  during  the  Rev- 
olution, and  at  times  on  the  frontier,  to  disregard  the 
forms  of  Law  in  the  search  for  Justice;  they  thus  ac- 
quired the  lynching  habit.  It  is  because  of  the  success 
of  the  Deckhard-rifle  government  of  the  early  days 
that  we  now  see  mobs  of  enraged  men  lynching  sup- 
posed offenders  in  the  midst  of  communities  where  the 
laws  might  be  enforced  in  orderly  fashion. 

It  is  most  important  to  observe  that  even  when  an 
innocent  man  is  lynched  the  victim  is  less  to  be  pitied 
than  the  lynchers.  For  the  degradation  they  inflict 
upon  themselves  and  the  comunity  is  far  worse  than 
death. 

The  Watauga  people  on  learning  that  they  were 
beyond  the  limits  of  Virginia,  themselves  made  a  treaty 
with  the  Cherokees  by  which  they  leased  the  lands  they 

203 


A  History  of  the 

occupied,  thereby  evading  the  king's  proclamation,  for- 
bidding the  private  purchase  of  Indian  lands.  But  on 
March  17,  1775,  when  Henderson  bought  his  Transyl- 
vania tract  of  the  Cherokees,  the  Watauga  people  made 
another  treaty,  and  bought  their  tract,  paying  £2,000 
in  goods  for  it.  It  was  during  those  treaty-making 
days  that  the  leading  Cherokee  chief,  Oconostota,  spoke 
of  the  Kentucky  region  as  a  "dark  and  bloody  ground," 
and  another  chief  said  to  Boone: 

"Brother,  we  have  given  you  a  fine  land,  but  I  be- 
lieve you  will  have  much  trouble  in  settling  it,"  (Imlay, 
p.  361). 

In  1770  Ebenezer,  Silas,  and  Jonathan  Zane  came 
to  Wheeling  Creek,  and  where  the  city  of  Wheeling 
now  stands,  made  a  "tomahawk  claim."  Blazing  a  tree 
they  marked  on  it,  (engraved  on  it  with  a  knife),  the 
extent  of  land  claimed,  with  its  river  boundary.  There 
was  no  law  authorizing  such  an  "entry"  of  land,  but 
it  was  a  method  usually  (not  always),  recognized  by 
the  home  makers,  and  such  claims  were  commonly  made 
valid  by  legal  process  afterwards.  The  Zane  claim 
was  a  fine  townsite,  for  to  this  day  it  is  at  the  head 
of  deep  water  navigation  on  the  Ohio.  The  Zanes 
were  pioneers  on  that  part  of  the  river,  and  Zanesville, 
Ohio,  perpetuates  their  memory. 

On  October  18,  1770,  at  Lochabar,  the  Cherokees 
signed  a  treaty  locating  the  Indian  boundary  line  be- 
tween a  spot  on  the  south  branch  of  the  Holston,  six 
miles  east  of  Long  Island,  and  the  mouth  of  the  Kana- 
wha, a  confirmation  of  the  treaty  of  1768.  Thereafter 
the  Virginia  Legislature  offered  every  actual  settler  on 
the  western  lands,  400  acres  of  land  free,  save  for  the 

204 


Mississippi   Valley. 

expense  of  registering  the  claim,  with  the  privilege  of 
buying  i,ooo  acres  adjoining  it,  at  a  price  but  little 
above  the  cost  of  surveying  the  claim  and  filing  the 
papers. 

About  this  time  good  inducements  were  offered  to 
people  who  would  emigrate  to  the  British  territory 
on  the  lower  Mississippi  between  Natchez  and  the  Man- 
chac  Bayou.  To  this  region  went  many  people,  includ- 
ing not  a  few  New  Englanders.  They  usually  passed 
the  Alleghanies  in  companies  to  the  head  waters  of 
the  Tennessee,  where  they  usually  arrived  early  in  the 
spring.  On  the  Holston  or  the  Clinch  they  squatted 
down  and  passed  the  summer  in  raising  corn,  hunting 
and  building  boats.  When  the  corn  was  harvested  they 
went  afloat  with  their  families  and  corn;  braved  the 
terrors  of  the  Boiling  Pot,  the  Suck  and  the  ]\Iuscle 
Shoals;  fought  the  Indians  as  the  occasion  required; 
and  finally  reached  the  promised  land.  These  were  the 
first  house  boatmen  of  the  Great  Valley,  properly  so 
called.  The  village  of  Boatyard,  in  Sullivan  County, 
Tenn.,  got  its  name  from  the  fact  that  it  was  the  point 
from  which  most  of  these  voyagers  took  their  depar- 
ture. 

In  1773  General  Lyman,  of  Connecticut,  and  some 
military  friends,  laid  out  several  additions  to  the  old 
French  settlement  at  Natchez,  and  to  that  point  no  less 
than  400  families  emigrated  during  the  year  named, 
passing  down  the  Ohio  in  flat  boats,  while  an  unre- 
corded host  traveled  by  way  of  Boatyard. 

In  February,  1764.  Capt.  George  Johnson  arrived 
at  Pensacola  to  take  possession  of  the  Territory  which 
had  been  acquired  by  the  treaty  with  France.     He 

205 


A  History  of  the 

soon  sent  detachments  of  soldiers  up  the  Mississippi 
to  Baton  Rouge  and  Natchez.  A  fort  was  built  on  the 
Bayou  Manchac,  a  short  distance  from  the  Missis- 
sippi, and  named  Fort  Bute,  in  honor  of  the  Prime 
Minister,  Meantime,  on  February  27,  Major  Loftus 
and  a  force  of  400  men  were  sent  up  the  river  in  ten 
barges  rowed  by  sixteen  oars  each,  to  take  command 
of  the  Illinois  country,  with  head  quarters  at  Fort 
Chartres.  At  the  end  of  three  weeks  the  force  was 
toiling  around  the  base  of  the  bluff  where  Fort  Adams 
landing  is  now  found,  (ten  miles  above  the  mouth 
of  the  Red  River),  when  a  host  of  Tunica  or  Yazoo 
Indians  attacked  them,  and  inflicted  such  severe  loss 
that  the  force  turned  down  the  river,  abandoning  the 
enterprise. 

On  securing  peaceable  possession  of  the  territory 
along  the  lower  Mississippi,  the  British  first  of  all 
opened  a  smuggling  trade  with  the  people  of  New 
Orleans.  Fort  Bute  was  built  for  a  smuggling  sta- 
tion, no  doubt.  Trade  flourished  so  well  there  that 
when  the  Spanish  came  into  power  at  New  Orleans 
they  built  a  fort  opposite  and  about  400  yards  from 
Fort  Bute  as  a  check  on  the  smugglers,  though  with- 
out materially  hurting  the  trade. 

The  slave  trade  was  the  most  important  branch 
of  the  business.  The  slavers  of  Newport,  Rhode 
Island,  competed  with  those  from  Bristol,  London 
and  Liverpool,  in  supplying  the  demand  for  ignorant 
black  laborers.  Moreover  a  demand  for  slaves  grew 
up  in  the  British  territory.  It  is  a  notable  fact  that 
the  pioneers  of  the  Ohio  watershed  hewed  their  homes 
out  of  the  solid  green  woods  with  their  own  strong 

206 


Mississippi   Valley. 

arms,  while  the  lands  on  the  lower  Mississippi  were 
developed  chiefly  by  slave  labor.  The  emigrants  who 
made  homes  below  Natchez  appear  to  have  been 
wealthier,  as  a  class,  than  those  locating  in  Kentucky. 
Among  the  old  land  grants  of  the  time,  yet  to  be 
found  on  file  in  the  Natchez  district  land  office, 
(Washington,  Miss.),  is  one  of  25,000  acres  to  Amos 
Ogden,  dated  October  27,  1772.  Another  for  20,000 
acres  was  granted  to  Thaddeus  Lyman,  of  Connecti- 
cut.    Many  others  of  varying  size  are  to  be  seen. 

These  people  cultivated  sugar  cane  and  cotton, 
and  lived  such  quiet  lives  that  no  record  of  their 
doings  is  found  in  history,  save  only  that  when  the 
Atlantic  colonies  revolted  under  the  oppression  of  the 
British  Government,  they  remained  loyal  to  the  King, 
but  were  not  sufficiently  numerous  or  aggressive  to 
take  any  material  part  in  the  struggle. 

Fort  Chartres  was  surrendered  by  the  Command- 
ant, (St.  Ange),  early  in  1765,  to  Captain  Sterling, 
who  came  by  the  way  of  Detroit.  It  was  then,  and 
continued  to  be,  the  head  post  of  all  the  western  ter- 
ritory while  the  British  ruled  there. 

Meantime  many  surveyors  came  into  the  Ohio 
Valley,  among  whom  none  was  more  notable  than 
Capt.  Thomas  Bullitt.  Bullitt  laid  out  a  town, 
(1773),  where  Charleston,  West  Virginia,  now  stands 
— an  excellent  location  because  at  the  head  of  the 
deep-water  navigation  of  the  Great  Kanawha.  Then 
he  went  to  the  falls  of  the  Ohio,  and  in  August  laid 
out  a  townsite  where  Louisville,  Ky.,  has  since  de- 
veloped. The  first  house  was  built  on  this  site  by 
John  Cowan  in  1774. 

207 


A  History  of  the 

In  1773  James,  George  and  Robert  McAfee,  with 
Hancock  Taylor,  went  to  the  Kentucky  River,  and  on 
July  16,  surveyed  a  plot  of  600  acres  where  Frank- 
fort now  stands.  In  1774  James  Harrod  with  a 
party  of  forty  men  went  to  the  spot  where  Harrods- 
burg  is  found,  and  beginning  on  June  16,  built 
a  log  house — the  first  house  of  any  kind  erected  in 
Kentucky.  They  also  planted  corn — made  a  corn- 
patch  claim — and  that  was  a  claim  no  one  would 
dispute.  During  that  season  the  woods  were  full 
of  homeseekers,  speculators  and  surveyors,  but  an- 
other Indian  war  was  to  interrupt  their  work,  and  to 
that  the  next  chapter  shall  be  given. 


208 


SIMON    KENT(JN. 


The  companion  of  Boone  in  many  of  his  enterprises.     A  portrait 
from  life,  by  Morgan. 


XII 


LORD  DUNMORE'S  WAR. 


An  unfair  Distribution  of  Goods  was  one  Cause  of  the 
Trouble — Men  who  DeHghted,  in  Murder  and  Theft 
— Robbed  Soldiers  and  White  Home  Makers  as  well 
as  Indians — Desired  an  Indian  War  as  an  aid  in  Set- 
tling a  Colony's  Boundary — An  Official  Letter  that 
Turned  the  White  Desperadoes  Loose  on  the  In- 
dians— The  Battle  of  Point  Pleasant — The  True 
Story  of  the  Famous  Speech  of  Logan. 

The  brief  and  decisive  conflict  known  as  Lord 
Dunmore's  war  was  brought  on  partly  by  the  heedless 
ignorance  of  the  Indian  ways  which  the  whites  have 
always  displayed,  and  partly  by  the  devilish  depravity 
of  some  of  the  white  men  on  the  frontier.  At  the 
treaty  of  Fort   Stanwix  the  wdiites  paid  $50,000  to 

209 


A  History  of  the 

the  Indians  for  the  lands  on  the  southerly  side  of  the 
Ohio  River  as  far  as  the  Tennessee.  The  goods  were 
delivered  to  the  representative  chiefs  gathered  at  Fort 
Stanwix.  The  Six  Nations  chiefs  so  far  dominated 
at  that  treaty  that  they  signed  it  for  the  Delawares 
and  Shav^nees,  and  it  was  therefore  but  natural  that 
they  should  dominate  in  sharing  the  goods  received 
for  the  land.  To  the  Delaware  and  Shawnee  chiefs 
a  small  portion  was  given  and  they  went  away  partly 
satisfied.  When  they  reached  their  homes  in  the  Ohio 
country  with  their  attenuated  share  of  the  goods  they 
divided  with  their  immediate  relatives  and  friends. 
The  masses  of  the  Delawares  and  Shawnees  did  not 
get  so  much  as  a  smell  of  the  Fort  Stanwix  rum, 
or  more  than  a  long  range  look  at  the  arms, 
tools  and  good  cloths  dealt  out  there.  The  lands, 
where  the  buffalo  and  the  deer  ranged  in  herds  al- 
most as  tame  as  the  white  men's  oxen,  had  been  sold; 
the  white  man  would  soon  kill  off  all  that  game  and 
make  farms  of  the  lands,  and  not  one  glass  bead  were 
the  masses  of  these  Indians  to  get  in  return. 

The  thought  of  it  was  maddening.  Worse  yet, 
the  white  man,  having  spread  to  the  Tennessee,  would 
cross  the  Ohio  as  he  had  crossed  the  Alleghanies. 
The  Indian  foresaw  that  event  very  clearly,  and  even 
the  chiefs  who  had  been  bribed  at  Fort  Stanwix  soon 
realized  that  they  had  resigned  a  lasting  heritage  for 
goods  that,  at  best,  were  soon  worn  out  and  lost.  It 
was  in  this  kind  of  bargaining  that  the  whites  were 
heedless. 

Following  the  Zanes  to  Wheeling  came  many  peo- 
ple, of  whom  the  majority  were  the  homemakers  whom 

210 


Mississippi   Valley. 

we  cannot  sufficiently  honor.  But  along  with  these 
came  others  whom  we  cannot  sufficiently  detest.  In 
our  later  history,  when  our  frontier  was  far  be- 
yond the  Mississippi,  the  existence  of  frontier  des- 
peradoes was  well  known,  and  vigilance  committees 
were  necessary,  perhaps,  to  rid  the  fair  earth  of  their 
depraved  presence.  The  existence  of  this  class,  when 
the  Ohio  country  was  the  frontier,  seems  not  to  be 
so  well  known,  but  they  were  there  in  force.  They 
were  men  who  sought  the  frontier  because  govern- 
ment among  the  whites  there  was  about  as  loose  as 
among  the  Indians  at  all  times.  They  not  only  robbed 
the  white  homemakers,  but  they  even  formed  wide- 
spread organizations  for  that  purpose.  They  were 
so  bold,  in  fact,  that  they  would  rob  a  Government 
expedition  in  the  wilderness.  When  in  1785  General 
Butler  went  down  the  Ohio  river  with  a  force  of 
national  soldiers  to  establish  posts  and  make  a  treaty, 
these  desperadoes  robbed  the  expedition. 

"I  find  we  are  infested  by  scoundrels  more  unruly 
and  unprincipled  than  the  savages,  and  who  wish  to 
frustrate  the  treaty,"  wrote  Butler  in  his  journal. 

They  were  men  who  delighted  in  theft  and  murder, 
and  who  thrived  best  when  there  was  open  war  be- 
tween the  whites  and  the  Indians.  But  while  many 
of  them  were  lynched  for  stealing  horses  from  white 
men,  their  disregard  of  Indian  rights  was  considered 
very  lightly  by  the  homemaker  who  had  suffered  or 
seen  his  neighbor  suffer  from  Indian  raids. 

Early  in  1774  Virginia's  claim  to  the  land  in 
the  forks  of  the  Ohio  added  to  the  trouble.  Dr.  John 
Connelly  came  to  Fort  Pitt,  (then  grown  to  be  quite 

211 


A  History  of  the 

a  settlement),  and  as  a  representative  of  Lord  Dun- 
more,  governor  of  Virginia,  issued  a  proclamation 
calling  the  people  there  and  at  Redstone  to  meet  at 
Fort  Pitt  and  organize  themselves  as  Virginia  militia. 
Connelly  was  arrested  by  Arthur  St.  Clair,  who  rep- 
resented Pennsylvania,  but  a  mob  gathered  in  answer 
to  the  proclamation,  and  after  drinking  freely,  fired 
at  an  Indian  village  across  the  Alleghany. 

When  Connelly  was  released,  (on  bail),  he  de- 
termined to  precipitate  a  war  with  the  Indians  because 
such  a  war  would  give  excuse  for  Virginia's  governor 
to  call  out  all  the  militia,  when,  with  an  overwhelming 
force,  he  could  settle  the  disputed  boundary.  To  this 
end,  on  April  21,  1774,  Connelly  wrote  a  circular 
letter  to  the  white  settlers  down  the  Ohio,  warning  them 
to  prepare  for  a  Shawnee  outbreak. 

Coming  from  a  man  set  in  authority,  though  by 
unrighteous  means,  this  letter  was  sufficient  for  the 
purpose  intended.  The  peaceable  homemakers  fled 
by  thousands  to  Fort  Pitt  and  Redstone  for  safety. 
Daniel  Boone  ranged  through  Kentucky  and  warned 
the  people  there  to  fly  through  the  Cumberland  Gap. 

But  the  desperadoes  did  not  flee  immediately.  In- 
stead of  that  they  sought  for  scalps,  knowing  that  the 
Indians  were  not  expecting  trouble,  and  that  attacks 
could  be  made  in  safety  on  the  unsuspicious. 

It  was  in  vain  that  the  trader,  George  Croghan, 
then  living  near  Fort  Pitt,  gave  warning.  'There  is 
too  great  a  spirit  in  the  frontier  people  for  killing 
Indians,  and  if  the  assembly  gives  in  to  that  spirit,  no 
doubt  they  will  soon  have  a  general  rupture,"  instead 
of  a  conflict  with  the  Shawnees  merely,  he  said. 

212 


Mississippi   Valley. 

A  copy  of  Connelly's  letter  reached  the  Zane  set- 
tlement at  Wheeling,  and  fell  into  the  hands  of  Mi- 
chael Cresap.  This  Cresap  was  a  son  of  Col.  Thomas 
Cresap,  the  "vagrant  Yorkshire  man"  previously  men- 
tioned as  a  settler  in  Western  Maryland.  Young 
Michael  had  been  trained  on  the  frontier,  and  had  been 
a  trader,  like  his  father ;  but  he  had  become  bankrupt, 
and  was  now  on  the  Ohio,  hoping  to  recruit  his  for- 
tunes by  land  speculations.  To  Cresap  the  letter  of 
Connelly  was  a  sufficient  warrant  for  any  deed  of 
blood.  According  to  George  Rogers  Clark,  who  was 
present,  "the  war  post  was  planted,  a  council  called, 
the  letter  read,  the  ceremonies  used  by  the  Indians 
on  so  important  an  occasion  acted,  and  war  was  for- 
mally declared." 

These  civilized  white  men,  before  going  out  to  kill 
Indians,  went  through  with  the  ceremonies  used  by 
Indians.  They  circled  around  the  war  post,  and  each 
struck  his  tomahawk  into  it,  while  all  gave  the  war 
whoop  repeatedly. 

Clark  adds :  "The  same  evening  two  scalps  were 
brought  into  camp."  The  story  of  these  two  scalps 
is  interesting.  Word  reached  the  settlement  that  a 
canoe  with  two  or  three  Indians  in  it  was  coming  down 
the  Ohio.  Cresap  gathered  a  party  and  started  up  the 
river  in  a  canoe  to  meet  them,  sending  another  party 
to  lie  in  ambush  in  the  weeds  of  the  river  bank,  mean- 
time. 

This  canoe  contained  a  white  man  named  Ste- 
vens, a  friendly  Delaware  and  a  friendly  Shawnee,  all 
in  the  employ  of  a  Pittsburg  trader  named  Butler. 
They  were  coming  dow^n  the  river  to  get  some  furs 

213 


A  History  of  the 

belonging  to  their  employer,  which  had  been  lost  by 
other  employees  of  the  trader  in  a  brawl  with  a  party 
of  Cherokees  some  days  earlier. 

On  seeing  Cresap's  canoe,  Stevens  thought  from 
the  way  it  was  handled  that  it  contained  the  party  of 
Cherokees  that  had  made  trouble  on  the  former  occa- 
sion, and  he  steered  for  the  bank.  This  brought  his 
canoe  within  range  of  the  men  Cresap  had  placed  in 
ambush,  and  they,  although  they  could  see  that  Ste- 
phens was  a  white  man,  shot  the  two  Indians  dead. 

These  Indians  were  murdered  on  April  26,  1774. 
On  the  27th,  (one  account  says  the  26th),  a  man 
named  McMahon  brought  word  to  Cresap  that  four- 
teen Indians  had  passed  down  the  river.  Cresap,  with 
a  party  of  fifteen,  pursued  and  overtook  them  at  Grave 
Creek.  Having  heard  of  the  aggression  of  Cresap  the 
day  before,  the  Indians,  when  Cresap  opened  fire,  re- 
turned it,  and  then  they  fled  into  the  woods,  leaving 
one  of  their  party  dead.  It  appears  that  others  were 
mortally  wounded.  Cresap  brought  but  one  scalp  to 
Wheeling,  but  the  Indians  said  afterward  that  "sev- 
eral" were  killed.  George  Rogers  Clark,  then  a  youth 
of  twenty-one,  but  afterwards  a  noted  military  officer 
of  the  frontier,  was  with  Cresap.  In  after  years  Clark 
tried  to  excuse  this  attack  by  saying  that  these  Indians 
acted  in  a  suspicious  manner  when  going  down  the 
river, — that  is,  they  passed  on  the  further  side  of  an 
island  in  order  to  keep  clear  of  the  whites;  and  he 
adds  that  "we  found  a  considerable  quantity  of  ammu- 
nition and  other  warlike  stores,"  in  their  canoe  when 
they  fled.  What  Cresap  actually  did  find  was  "six- 
teen kegs  of  rum,  two  saddles  and  some  bridles," — and 

214 


Mississippi   Valley. 

nothing  more.  The  idea  that  Indians  would  leave  am- 
munition behind  on  such  an  occasion  is  pure  nonsense. 
But  even  if  they  had  been  supplied  with  enough  to 
leave  some  behind,  the  fact  would  have  shown  only 
that  they  were  going  hunting. 

On  returning  to  Wheeling,  Cresap  organized  a 
company  to  go  up  the  river  and  attack  an  Indian  vil- 
lage, under  the  famous  chief  Logan,  at  the  mouth  of 
Yellow  Creek,  opposite  a  trading  station  belonging 
to  a  man  named  Joshua  Baker.  The  company  marched 
five  miles,  and  then  abandoned  the  plan  for  reasons 
not  fully  known.  Clark's  statement  that  these  men 
"argued  the  impropriety"  of  the  attack,  and  abandoned 
it  on  humane  grounds,  is  unbelievable.  They  were 
frontier  toughs,  and  it  is  likely  that  the  revulsion  of 
feeling  often  seen  in  such  characters — a  panic  of  fear 
following  murderous  deeds — came  upon  them.  At 
any  rate  Cresap  and  more  than  half  of  the  gang  imme- 
diately fled  to  safety  at  Redstone,  on  the  Monongahela. 
A  few  continued  on  to  Baker's,  being  determined  to 
slaughter  the  red  people  at  all  hazards.  A  man  named 
Daniel  C.  Greathouse  now  took  the  lead,  and  gathered 
a  gang  of  thirty-two.  On  April  30,  he  went  across  to 
Yellow  Creek  alone,  pretending  friendship  for,  but 
really  to  count,  the  Indians.  He  found  them  too  nu- 
merous even  for  a  night  attack,  although  thirty-two 
white  men  had  been  induced  by  love  of  blood  and  the 
hope  of  plunder  to  make  the  attack. 

While  he  was  still  among  the  Indians  a  friendly 
squaw,  (a  relative  of  Chief  Logan),  told  Greathouse 
that  her  people  had  heard  of  the  deeds  of  Cresap,  and 
were  meditating  revenge.     She  advised  him  to  leave, 

215 


A  History  of  the 

and  he  did  so,  after  inviting,  as  he  left,  a  considerable 
number  of  Indians  to  cross  to  Baker's  and  get  some 
rum  as  a  treat. 

Accordingly  several  Indians  did  cross  to  Baker's. 
The  accounts  vary  as  to  the  number,  but  it  appears 
that  four  red  men,  three  squaws  and  a  little  girl  went. 
Definite  statements  are  made  that  one  of  the  squaws 
was  Logan's  mother,  that  another  squaw,  (one  who 
carried  the  little  girl),  was  his  sister,  and  that  one  of 
the  red  men  was  his  brother.  Two  Indians  got  drunk, 
and  two  refused  to  drink,  but  these  two  were  induced 
to  shoot  at  a  mark,  after  the  other  two  were  helpless. 

When  the  Indians  had  fired  their  guns,  and  were 
thus  incapable  of  defending  themselves,  the  thirty-two 
white  men  attacked  and  slaughtered  the  party  all  but 
the  child.  The  man  who  killed  Logan's  sister  boasted 
that  he  shot  her  at  a  range  of  six  feet.  He  was  then 
going  to  "dash  out  the  child's  brains,"  but  on  seeing 
the  little  thing  fall  with  her  mother,  "felt  some  re- 
morse," and  desisted.  The  Indians  over  at  Yellow 
Creek,  on  hearing  the  reports  of  guns,  sent  a  canoe 
with  five  warriors  to  learn  why  the  guns  were  fired. 
These  were  ambushed  and  four,  (or  perhaps  but  two), 
were  killed,  while  another  was  wounded. 

It  was  during  these  days  that  John  Heckwelder  and 
David  Zeisberger,  Moravian  missionaries,  animated 
by  a  feeling  which  frontier  writers  have  ever  since, 
with  lofty  contempt,  called  "Quaker  sentiment,"  were 
teaching  the  Ohio  Indians  to  grub  stumps  and  dig  the 
ground  and  plant  corn,  and  adopt  a  new  religion — they 
were  building  Gnadenhutten,  of  which  something  more 
shall  be  told. 

216 


Mississippi  Valley. 

Logan  had  been  the  friend  of  the  whites,  but  now 
the  red  blood  in  his  veins  boiled.  Three  separate  raids 
were  made  by  parties  under  him  into  the  Monongahela 
valley.  In  the  first  of  these  he  alone  took  thirteen 
scalps.  What  other  raiders  did  is  told  only  in  general 
terms.  It  was  a  war  on  the  Virginians,  and  the  whole 
Virginia  frontier  blazed,  and  ran  red  with  blood,  the 
innocents  suffering,  as  always,  for  the  crimes  of  des- 
peradoes, who  sneaked  away  to  safety  when  the  danger 
became  great.  But  when  Logan  took  a  prisoner,  as 
happened  on  one  raid,  he  saved  the  man  from  the  stake 
at  the  risk  of  his  own  life. 

But  the  story  of  the  white  treachery  is  not  yet  com- 
plete. The  traders  then  among  the  Indians  fled  for 
their  lives  and  were  helped  from  the  country  by  per- 
sonal friends  among  the  red  men.  Some  of  these 
friendly  Indians  went  as  far  as  Fort  Pitt  with  the  tra- 
ders. And  while  these  friendly  Indians  were  at  Fort 
Pitt,  Connelly  tried  to  imprison  them,  but  Croghan, 
the  trader,  foiled  him.  Then  finding  that  they  were 
getting  away,  Connelly  sent  men  who  waylaid  and 
shot  three  of  them  from  ambush. 

An  old  account  says  that  "the  character  developed" 
by  Connelly  on  this  occasion  was  such  as  to  draw  down 
"the  reproof  of  Lord  Dartmouth." 

The  Ohio  Indians  had  been  restless  for  months. 
They  had  been  expecting  large  quantities  of  goods  in 
payment  for  lands  that  were  to  be  organized  as  the 
colony  of  Vandalia,  and  had  been  disappointed.  They 
were  angered  because  they  had  been  driven  from  the 
lands  within  the  forks  of  the  Ohio.  They  were  alarmed 
and  angered  by  the  influx  of  whites  that  had  followed 

217 


A  History  of  the 

the  treaty  of  Fort  Stanwix.  The  devilish  work  of  Con- 
nelly, Cresap  and  Greathouse  came  just  at  the  right 
time  to  rouse  them  to  the  point  where  almost  to  a  man 
they  would  dig  up  the  hatchet,  as  Logan  had  done. 

To  meet  the  overwhelming  red  force  thus  turned 
loose  on  the  Virginia  frontier,  Gen.  Andrew  Lewis, 
wuth  1,100  or  1,200  men  (of  whom  fifty  came  from  the 
Watauga  settlement,  under  Capt.  Evan  Shelby), 
marched  from  Virginia  over  the  range  to  and  down 
the  Kanawha.  Lord  Dunmore  himself,  with  another 
force,  announced  that  he  would  join  Lewis  at  this 
point,  and  the  united  forces  were  then  to  cross  the 
Ohio,  and  lay  desolate  the  Indian  villages. 

When  Lewis  reached  the  Ohio,  on  October  9,  1774, 
however,  Lord  Dunmore  was  nowhere  near.  Instead 
of  Dunmore  came  Cornstalk,  the  Shawanese,  with 
1,000  warriors,  to  fight  these  white  men  on  their  own 
ground.  Cornstalk  had  learned  Dunmore's  plan  of 
bringing  the  Virginians  in  two  bodies  to  unite  on  the 
Ohio,  and,  with  admirable  tactics,  determined  to  attack 
and  destroy  the  smaller  force  first.  The  Indians  knew 
all  they  needed  to  know,  as  they  crossed  the  Ohio  above 
the  Kanawha,  about  the  position  of  the  Virginians. 
The  Virginians  knew  nothing  of  the  coming  of  the 
Indians. 

At  four  o'  clock  next  morning,  October  10,  the  In- 
dians came  gliding  through  the  woods  to  surprise  the 
white  man's  camp,  and  they  would  have  succeeded,  but 
for  the  lack  of  discipline  in  the  camp !  The  General  had 
ordered  the  poorest  of  the  cattle,  driven  along  to  supply 
the  men  with  beef,  to  be  killed  and  served.  IMen  who 
didn't  like  this  beef  left  camp  without  permission,  to 

218 


Mississippi   Valley. 

go  and  kill  game.  Several  men  were  going  out  hunting 
in  pairs,  that  morning,  before  daylight.  One  pair, 
whose  names  were  Alooney  and  Hickman,  met  the  In- 
dians about  a  mile  from  camp,  and  were  fired  on. 
Hickman  was  killed.  At  about  the  same  time  James 
Robertson  and  another  Watuga  man  met  the  Indians, 
but  both  of  these  escaped,  and  with  ]Mooney  ran  to 
camp. 

It  was  a  camp  of  frontiersmen.    They  were  asleep, 
but  the  shouts  of  the  hunters  and  the  rolling  of  drums 
brought  them  to  their  feet,  gun  in  hand.    And  leaping _ 
behind  trees  and  logs  they  were  instantly  ready  for  the 
conflict. 

It  began  in  the  dusk  of  morning.  The  commanding 
general  thought  only  a  scouting  party  had  been  seen, 
and  sent  out  a  detachment  with  two  scouts  leading  the 
way — two  to  serve  as  a  sacrifice  that  the  men  might 
not  be  surprised.  The  two  were  soon  killed.  The  at- 
tack on  the  detachment  soon  followed.  Reinforcements 
came  swiftly  to  support  them,  but  the  Indians  took 
position  on  a  commanding  piece  of  ground,  and  be- 
fore the  sunlight  brightened  the  tops  of  the  trees, 
the  two  hosts  were  spread  out  in  lines  more  than  a  mile 
long,  facing  each  other  at  a  range  that  never  exceeded 
twenty  yards.  They  crouched  behind  trees,  and  look- 
ing up  or  down  the  line,  fired  at  glimpses  of  white  or 
red  flesh,  or  coon  skin  caps  or  disordered  plumes.  They 
leaped  from  shelter,  and  with  jeers  and  taunts  invited 
assault,  only  that  the  assaulters  might  be  decoyed  into 
exposing  themselves  to  those  lying  in  wait.  Indians 
were  never  more  aggressive  in  open  battle.  They  re- 
peatedly called  the  whites  the  sons  of  female  dogs,  and 

219 


A  History  uf  the 

shouted  "why  don't  you  whistle  now?'^  (referring  to 
the  fifes),  and  "we'll  learn  you  to  shoot."  They  even 
charged  on  the  whites,  singly  and  in  squads,  and  with 
knife  and  tomahawk,  fought  it  out,  hand  to  hand,  man 
fashion.  Many  men  with  mortal  wounds  fought  on 
until  death  froze  the  look  of  hate  on  their  faces. 

And  through  it  all  old  Cornstalk  raged  up  and 
down  his  line,  shouting  in  a  voice  heard  above  the  roar 
of  guns : 

"Be  strong!  Be  strong!" 


Gen.  Wm.   Henry  Harrison's  Residence. 
(From  a  Contemporary  Print.) 

They  were  strong.  Indians  never  were  braver. 
Here  was  the  best  fight  ever  made  by  our  red  men. 
Two  white  colonels  were  killed  and  one  wounded.  The 
whites  became  discouraged  under  the  prolonged  as- 
saults of  the  red  men.  As  the  sun  went  down  defeat 
stared  them  in  the  face. 

But  when  they  would  have  wavered  Gen.  Lewis 
sent  Capt.  Evan  Shelby,  with  his  Watauga  men,  under 
the  bank  of  the  Kanawha  to  a  ravine,  through  which 

220 


MAJ.    GE\.     WII.I.IAM    HKNRY    HARRISON. 
From  an  i>rii,nnal  portrait  by  Lanibdin 


Mississippi   Valley. 

they  were  able  to  flank  and  get  in  rear  of  the  Indians. 
And  then  when  Shelby  opened  fire  there,  the  Indians 
fled  in  spite  of  the  storming  Cornstalk. 

The  white  men  lost  seventy-five  killed  and  140 
wounded.  The  Indians  lost  only  thirty-three  killed,  so 
far  as  known,  but  they  were  disheartened. 

Among  the  men  who  took  part  in  this  fight  was  one 
Benjamin  Harrison,  whose  name  is  not  unknown  to 
American  history.  He  was  a  captain  under  Lewis. 
Isaac  Shelby,  afterward  Governor  of  Kentucky,  was 
a  lieutenant  of  the  company  of  Capt.  Evan  Shelby,  his 
father.  James  Robertson  was  a  sergeant  in  this  com- 
pany, and  all  its  members  came  from  the  Watauga 
country. 

Lord  Dunmore  had  taken  his  force  down  the  Ohio 
to  the  Hockhocking  River,  where  he  built  a  wooden 
fort.  Thence,  after  Lewis  won  the  battle  of  Point 
Pleasant  (as  the  fight  at  the  mouth  of  the  Kanawha 
was  called),  Dunmore  marched  to  the  Scioto,  camping 
on  Sippo  Creek,  about  eight  miles  from  the  modern 
town  of  Westfall,  O.  There  he  met  Cornstalk  and 
made  peace. 

Cornstalk,  with  all  his  eloquence,  strove  to  rouse 
the  Indians  to  another  battle.  He  taunted  and  im- 
plored, and  finally  proposed  that  they  kill  their  women 
and  children,  and  then  fight  until  they  themselves  died 
free,  rather  than  yield  before  the  advancing  whites; 
but  nothing  could  move  them.  With  the  feeling  that 
he  was  the  chief  of  a  band  of  cowards,  he  met  Dun- 
more. He  accepted  Dunmore's  terms,  but  he  did  it 
"with  words  and  bearing  that  roused  the  admiration 
even  of  the  Indian  haters  among  the  whites." 

221 


A  History  of  the 

To  this  conference  Logan  refused  to  come.  He 
"disdained  to  be  seen  among  the  supphants."  But  he 
was  willing,  for  the  sake  of  his  people,  that  peace 
should  be  made.  John  Gibson,  an  interpreter  with 
Lord  Dunmore  (Gibson  was  a  general  in  the  war  of 
the  Revolution),  was  sent  to  the  Indians,  at  their  re- 
quest, during  the  negotiations.  Logan  met  Gibson, 
took  him  a  little  away  from  the  other  Indians,  sat 
down  among  the  bushes  near  the  camp,  and  there,  "af- 
ter shedding  abundant  tears,"  dictated  the  message  that 
is  one  of  the  most  striking  outbursts  of  red  oratory 
known  to  the  annals  of  the  race  : 

"I  appeal  to  any  white  man  to  say  if  ever  he  en- 
tered Logan's  cabin  hungry, and  he  gave  him  not  meat; 
if  ever  he  came  cold  and  hungry,  and  he  clothed  him 
not.  During  the  course  of  the  last  long  and  bloody 
war  Logan  remained  idle  in  his  cabin,  an  advocate  for 
peace.  Such  was  my  love  for  the  whites  that  my 
countrymen  pointed  as  they  passed  and  said,  'Logan  is 
the  friend  of  the  white  men.'  I  had  even  thought  to 
have  lived  with  you,  but  for  the  injuries  of  one  man. 
Col.  Cresap,  the  last  spring,  in  cold  blood,  murdered 
all  the  relations  of  Logan,  not  even  sparing  my  women 
or  children.  There  runs  not  a  drop  of  my  blood  in 
the  veins  of  any  living  creature.  This  called  on  me 
for  revenge.  I  have  sought  it.  I  have  killed  many. 
I  have  fully  glutted  my  vengeance.  For  my  country 
I  rejoice  at  the  beams  of  peace.  But  do  not  harbor  a 
thought  that  mine  is  the  joy  of  fear.  Logan  never 
felt  fear.  He  will  not  turn  on  his  heel  to  save  his  life. 
Who  is  there  to  mourn  for  Logan  ?    Not  one." 


222 


%     "f" 


In^ 


*.J--vfc?H 


PKNJAMIN    FKANKLI.N. 
From  a  portrait  published  in  the  "•Portfolio"  in  1818. 


XIII 


THE  HOME  MAKERS  IN  KENTUCKY. 

The  Story  of  Pennsylvania  and  Boonesborough — The 
Frontier  Forts  and  Frontier  Houses  Described — The 
Old  Fashioned  Log-Roning  and  Other  Bees — The 
Deckhard  Rifle — Frontier  Clothing — Contrast  Be- 
tween the  Dominant  People  of  Louisiana  and  Those 
of  the  Ohio  Watershed — A  Government  Established 
at  Boonesborough. 

When  Lord  Dunmore  dictated  peace  to  the  Indians 
on  the  bank  of  the  Scioto,  he  opened  wide  the  road  for 
the  home-seekers  who  had  thronged  to  the  passes  of 
the  Alleghanies.  In  cowing  the  Indians  he  had 
strengthened  Virginia's  claim  to  lands  west  of  the 
mountains  far  more  than  the  Quebec  Bill  had  injured 
it.  The  story  of  the  home-makers  who  came  to  the  wil- 
derness, after  this  war  ended,  is,  therefore,  now  to  be 
told. 

223 


A  History  of  the 

And  it  may  be  observed  that  no  chapter  of  Ameri- 
can history  is  better  worth  the  attention  of  young 
Americans  than  this,  for  these  home-builders  were  em- 
phatically men  who  could  and  would  zvork — the  men 
after  God's  own  heart,  who  had  learned  "the  infinite 
conjugation  of  the  verb  to  do.'' 

Winsor  notes  in  his  "Westward  Movement"  that 
25,000  Scotch-Irish  Presbyterians  arrived  in  the  Del- 
aware from  1 77 1  to  1773,  and  he  adds  that  such  of 
this  element  as  came  to  the  frontier  had  no  better  use 
for  an  Indian  than  to  make  of  him  a  target  for  their 
rifles.  Any  study  of  the  history  of  the  region  shows 
that  settlers  of  the  Ohio  Valley  were  of  Protestant 
extraction,  and  to  a  large  extent  Presbyterians.  It  is 
easy  to  see,  now,  that  their  kind  of  Presbyterianism, 
and  their  other  isms,  were  not  like  modern  views  of 
Christianity.  It  is  a  matter  worth  consideration,  be- 
cause, as  Carlyle  points  out,  a  man's  real  creed,  the  one 
by  which  he  lives,  is  the  most  important  fact  about  him. 
But  if  these  home-seekers  were  not  men  who  obeyed 
the  Sermon  on  the  Mount,  it  p];omotes  one's  optimism 
to  note  that  they  were  distinctly  better  men  than  the 
people  who  came  to  Virginia  in  1609.  They  did  not 
profess  one  thing  and  do  another.  They  might  and 
they  did  shoot  the  red  men,  but  they  did  not  preface 
the  killing  by  publishing  drivel  about  coming  to  the 
frontier  "to  recover  out  of  the  arms  of  the  Devil  a  num- 
ber of  poore  and  miserable  soules." 

In  spite  of  their  professions,  the  Virginians  of  1609 
had  "no  talk,  no  hope,  no  work,  but  to  dig  gold,  re- 
fine gold,  loade  gold."  The  emigrant  to  the  Ohio  River 
frontier  of  Virginia  had  "no  talk,  no  hope,  no  work" 

224 


Mississippi  Valley. 

but  to  make  a  home ;  and  that  was  the  pubHc  profession 
as  well  as  the  creed  of  his  heart  that  he  expressed  in 
his  daily  life.  "God  never  intended  this  fair  land  to 
remain  a  wilderness,"  was  his  oral  and  written  creed, 
and  the  one  under  which  he  acted.  Church  rites  and 
ceremonies  received  very  little  attention  during  the 
days  when  the  "boom  was  on." 

The  home-makers  came  to  the  frontier  usually  in 
small  companies,  but  sometimes  in  single  families.  In- 
dividual men  also  came.  They  selected  the  bottom 
lands  and  low  ridges  covered  over  with  giant  walnuts, 
maples,  oaks,  sycamore,  shell-bark  hickory  and  other 
trees  known  to  grow  on  rich  soil,  until  all  readily 
reached  lands  of  the  kind  were  taken  up.  The  beech 
grove  lands  were  held  in  less  esteem. 

Consider  as  a  sample,  and  the  best  one  of  many  such 
settlements,  the  founders  of  Boonesborough.  During 
the  years  that  Daniel  Boone  was  going  to  and  fro  be- 
tween the  hunting  grounds  of  Kentucky  and  his  home 
on  the  Yadkin,  he  was  very  well  acquainted  with  Col. 
Richard  Henderson,  "one  of  the  principal  judges  in 
North  Carolina,  a  scholarly,  talented  man,  eminent  in 
the  legal  profession,"  (Thwaite's  "Boone").  Boone's 
stories  of  the  game  and  other  evidences  of  the  fertility 
of  the  Kentucky  soil  greatly  interested  Col.  Henderson, 
and  he  eventually  resolved  to  establish  a  colony  in  the 
new  country.  When  the  company  was  organized  they 
adopted  Transylvania  as  the  name  of  the  colony.  After 
some  delays,  the  chief  of  which  was  due  to  Lord  Dun- 
more's  war,  a  grand  council  was  held  (March,  1775,) 
at  Sycamore  Shoals,  on  the  Watauga,  with  i  ,200  Cher- 
okees,  who  were  gathered  there  by  Daniel  Boone,  as 

225 


A  History  of  the 

the  agent  of  the  Transylvania  Company.  When  there, 
the  Cherokees,  "for  $50,000  worth  of  cloths,  clothing, 
utensils,  ornaments  and  fire  arms,"  ceded  to  Henderson 
"all  the  country  lying  between  the  Kentucky  and  Cum- 
berland Rivers ;  also  a  path  of  approach  from  the  east, 
through  Powell's  Valley." 

To  show  how  far  such  bargains  benefited  the  In- 
dians, Thwaites  points  out  that  the  goods  in  bulk 
"filled  a  large  cabin."  When  distributed  "there  was 
but  little  for  each  warrior,  and  great  dissatisfaction 
arose.  One  Cherokee,  whose  portion  was  a  shirt,  de- 
clared that  in  one  day,  upon  this  land,  he  could  have 
killed  deer  enough  to  buy  such  a  garment,"  and  yet  the 
chiefs  had  given  the  land  away  for  all  time  for  such  a 
trifling  return.     It  "seemed  to  him  a  bad  bargain." 

Boone,  with  near  thirty  woodmen,  was  sent  from 
the  treaty  grounds  to  clear  a  path  to  a  spot  on  the  Ken- 
tucky River.  The  trail  thus  made  entered  Kentucky 
by  the  Cumberland  Gap,  and  came  to  be,  at  one  time, 
the  chief  route  south  of  the  Ohio  River.  It  was,  in  fact, 
traveled  by  more  people,  in  war  times,  than  the  Ohio 
was.    It  was  called  the  Wilderness  Road. 

As  Boone's  trail-making  party  traveled  through  the 
woods  the  rougher  obstructions  were  cleared  away  in 
order  to  make  a  passable  pack-horse  route  for  others 
who  were  to  come.  At  night  the  party  slept  without 
sentries,  a  fact  that  shows  better  than  any  other  the 
intrepidity  of  their  hearts.  But  one  morning  a  band  of 
Indians  charged  the  camp  at  daylight,  killed  a  negro 
slave  (a  few  slaves  came  thus  early  to  blight  the  land) 
and  Capt.  Twitty,  besides  wounding  Felix  Walker. 
Then  the  whites  rallied  and  beat  off  the  Indians,  and 

226 


Mississippi  Valley. 

they  kept  on  to  the  site  selected  for  Boonesborough, 
in  spite  of  another  attack,  when  two  men  were  killed. 

The  site  selected,  (Big  Lick,  just  below  the  mouth 
of  Otter  Creek),  was  reached  April  6.  "The  site  was 
a  plain  on  the  south  side  of  the  Kentucky."  As  the  par- 
ty entered  the  natural  opening  they  startled  a  herd  of 
200  or  300  buffaloes  "of  all  sizes,"  that  "made  off 
from  the  lick  in  every  direction." 

Naturally,  their  first  care  was  to  provide  a  shelter 
— one  that  would  keep  out  Indian  bullets  as  well  as 
rain  and  snow.  They  marked  off  a  rectangular  piece 
of  ground  165x250  feet  large,  and,  although  they  were 
a  long  time  completing  the  structure,  at  each  corner 
of  it  they  built  a  two-story  house  of  squared  logs.  The 
upper  story  was  made  to  project  several  feet  beyond  the 
walls  of  the  lower,  and  it  was  floored  with  puncheons, 
(or  split  planks),  thick  enough  to  be  bullet  proof.  In 
the  parts  of  this  floor  that  projected  beyond  the  lower 
story  they  cut  holes  through  which  they  could  shoot 
down  at  an  enemy  beneath,  and  there  were  a  plenty  of 
port  holes  in  the  walls  of  these  houses,  to  cover  the 
space  around  and  between  them. 

Between  these  corner  houses,  (called  block-houses), 
and  along  the  lines  of  the  rectangle  they  built  twenty- 
six  log  cabins,  each  about  eighteen  feet  square.  The 
outside  wall  of  each  was  laid  on  the  line  of  the  rec- 
tangle, and  was  built  up  smooth  and  solid,  (so  that  no 
Indian  could  climb  it),  to  a  height  of  twelve  feet.  It 
contained  no  door,  window  or  other  opening.  The  inner 
wall  was  eight  feet  high,  and  in  this  were  cut  two  open- 
ings for  windows,  and  one  for  a  door.  The  roof  was 
laid  in  a  single  flat  slope  from  the  outer  to  the  inner 

227 


A  History  of  the 

wall,  and  was  covered  at  first  with  bark,  but  afterwards 
with  long  shingles  that  were  held  in  place  with  thick 
poles. 

The  rows  of  cabins  did  not  quite  reach  the  block- 
houses, a  space  being  left  so  that  if  one  of  the  rows 
was  burned,  the  adjoining  block-house,  might  be  saved. 
But  a  palisade  wall  filled  these  spaces. 

In  the  center  of  each  of  the  long  sides  was  a  heavy, 
solid  gate.  Oneopened  toward  the  river;  another  inland. 
The  gates  were  defended  by  rows  of  palisades.  The 
loop  holes  of  the  block-houses  commanded  them,  and 
so  did  loop  holes  in  the  adjoining  cabins. 

The  Indians  had  but  one  hope  of  capturing  a  fort 
like  that.    The  roofs  were  easily  fired. 

James  Harrod  and  his  associates  built  a  fort  like 
this  at  Harrodsburg  beginning  in  March,  1775.  In  fact 
forts  of  the  kind  were  scattered  all  over  the  region.  In 
Imlay's  "Topographical  Description  of  the  Western 
Territory"  (published  in  1793),  is  a  "Map  of  Ken- 
tucky" by  John  Filson.  It  shows  all  the  settlements 
and  outlying  posts  and  homes.  The  fortified  stations 
are  represented  by  marks  well  worth  note. 

But  there  were  also  many  single  cabins  built  in  this 
region  far  beyond  the  protection  of  the  forts.  They 
were  without  exception  of  log  walls.  An  ax  and  an 
auger  were  the  only  tools  needed  for  building  such  a 
house.  The  logs  were  notched  together  at  the  corners. 
The  rafters  were  held  together  and  to  the  tops  of  walls 
by  pegs  driven  through  auger  holes.  Thick  boards 
called  puncheons,  were  split  from  logs  and  laid  for 
floors,  if  any  floor  was  laid.  Round  logs  served  to  sup- 
port such  a  floor.   Doors  were  made  of  puncheons  also. 


Mississippi   Valley. 


A  Portion  of  Filson's  Map  of  1785,  With  Haiirodsbukg. 
229 


'A  History  of  the 

and  these  were  hung  on  wooden  hinges,  and  barred  at 
night  with  heavy  pieces  of  timber.  The  doors  were 
sometimes  made  in  two  parts,  upper  and  lower,  and  it 
was  the  custom  to  open  the  upper  half  only,  in  trouble- 
some times  in  answer  to  a  hail,  because  an  enemy  could 
not  readily  charge  over  the  lower  half.  Windows  were 
not  put  in,  at  first,  because  the  home  builder  could  de- 
fend but  one  aperture,  but  for  years  after  peace  came, 
the  only  window  was  a  square  hole,  closed  at  night  by 
a  heavy  puncheon  shutter.  Neither  glass  nor  iron  was 
used  in  those  houses.  The  huge  fireplaces  were  made 
of  sandstone  where  it  could  be  found ;  elsewhere  of  split 
sticks  thickly  covered  with  clay.  The  shingles  on  the 
roof  were  held  in  place  by  straight  logs  laid  on  each 
row ;  but  it  should  be  noted  that  the  log  house  at  first 
was  roofed  with  bark.  Says  a  journal  written  by  one 
Calk,  of  Boone's  early  settlement,  (Roosevelt),  "we 
git  our  house  kivered  with  bark  and  move  our  things 
into  it  at  Night,  and  begin  Housekeeping."  That  was 
on  April  29,  1775. 

The  spaces  between  logs  were  filled  with  m.oss,  or 
clay  or  both,  but  not  always.  There  is  a  story  of  a  man 
whose  arm  was  severely  bitten  by  a  wolf  because,  as 
the  hungry  beast  prowled  near  the  cabin,  at  night,  the 
man  in  his  sleep  happened  to  thrust  his  arm  not  only 
out  of  bed,  but  out  through  the  space  between  the  logs 
on  a  level  with  the  bed.  Another  man  lying  with  his 
head  near  such  an  opening  had  his  scalp  badly  torn  by 
a  wolf. 

In  Mansfield's  "Life  of  Dr.  Daniel  Drake"  is  a 
letter  written  by  Drake  to  describe  a  Kentucky  home 
built  in  the  forest  in  1788.    It  was  one  of  a  group  of 

230 


Mississippi   Valley. 


A  Portion  of  Filson's  Map  of  1785,  With  Lexington. 
231 


A  History  of  the     • 

five  and  all  were  located  so  that  "no  house,  in  the  event 
of  being  attacked  by  the  Indians,  would  be  unsupported 
by  some  other."  When  the  parents  of  Drake  moved 
into  their  cabin  it  was  "one  story  high,  without  a  win- 
dow, with  a  door  opening  to  the  south,  a  half  finished 
wooden  chimney,  and  a  roof  on  one  side  only,  but  with- 
out any  upper  or  lower  floor."  There  was  a  puncheon 
door,  however,  and  it  could  be  secured  by  a  stout  bar. 
The  sills  for  the  floor  were  also  in  place,  and  Drake  re- 
called his  playing  on  the  ground  between  these  sills, 
while  the  father  and  mother  stepped  from  one  sill  to 
another  while  arranging  their  scant  household  goods. 
He  adds  that  each  cabin  had  port  holes  in  the  walls. 
They  always  kept  the  axe  and  scythe  under  the  bed  to 
use  in  case  of  attack  by  Indians;  and  before  opening 
the  door  in  the  morning  the  father  always  climbed  up 
the  log  wall  to  an  unchinked  crack  between  the  logs 
through  which  he  peered  to  see  whether  any  Indians 
were  in  waiting  to  rush  into  the  house  when  the  bar 
was  removed  from  the  door.  ' 

For  descriptions  of  the  furniture  of  those  homes, 
the  unfailing  resource  is  Dodridge's  "Notes."  A  table 
was  made  of  split  slab  and  supported  by  four  round 
legs  set  in  auger  holes.  Some  three-legged  stools  were 
made  in  the  same  manner.  Some  pins  stuck  in  the  logs 
at  the  back  of  the  house  supported  clapboards  which 
served  for  shelves  for  the  table  furniture.  A  single 
fork,  placed  with  its  lower  end  in  a  hole  in  the  floor,, 
and  the  upper  end  fastened  to  a  joist,  served  for  a 
bedstead,  by  placing  a  pole  in  the  fork  with  one  end 
through  a  crack  between  the  logs  in  the  wall.  This 
front  pole  was  crossed  by  a  shorter  one  within  the  fork, 

232 


M  ississippi    I  'alley. 


A  Portion  of  Filson's  Map  of  1785,  Showing  Louisville. 


A  History  of  the 

with  its  outer  end  through  another  crack.  From  the 
front  pole  through  a  crack  between  the  logs  at  the  end 
of  the  house,  (split)  boards  were  put  on  which  formed 
the  bottom  of  the  bed.  Skins  of  animals,  especially 
bear  skins,  made  excellent  substitutes  for  blankets. 

A  hollowed  log — a  round-bottomed  trough — served 
for  a  cradle.  They  had  the  rudest  furniture  ever  seen, 
but  also  the  strongest.  Fancy  the  possibilities  before 
him  who  was  rocked  to  sleep  in  a  hollow  log,  and  was 
taught  to  read,  and  imbibed  ambition,  by  the  flames  of 
a  roaring  fire-place ! 

The  furniture  of  the  table  consisted  of  a  few  pewter 
dishes,  plates  and  spoons ;  but  mostly  of  wooden  bowls, 
trenchers  and  noggins,  (cups).  If  these  last  were 
scarce,  gourds  and  hard-shelled  squashes  made  up  the 
deficiency.  The  iron  pots,  knives  and  forks  were  brought 
from  the  east  side  of  the  mountains  on  pack  horses. 
When  china  ware  came  it  was  not  liked  because  it  dulled 
the  edge  of  the  scalping  knife. 

They  had  neither  closets  nor  trunks.  Their  cloth- 
ing hung  from  pegs  driven  into  the  wall.  All  the  pos- 
sessions of  the  entire  family  were  under  the  eye  of 
every  visitor.  This  people  did  not  cultivate  the  habit 
of  concealment.    They  were  frank  and  open-hearted. 

But  a  more  important — on  the  whole  probably  the 
most  important — feature  of  the  frontier  was  the  bee 
habit — the  custom  of  gathering  in  companies  whenever 
opportunity  offered.  The  individual  settler  girdled 
the  trees  on  the  patch  of  land  he  wished  to  clear,  and 
when  they  were  dead,  he  felled  them.  Then  by  build- 
ing little  fires  at  intervals  of  twelve  or  fifteen  feet 
along  the  trunks — fires  of  small  sticks,  oft  replenished, 

234 


ANDREW    JACKSON. 
From  a  portrait  by  Jarvis,  in  1815. 


Mississippi   Valley. 

and  held  down  by  a  chunk  of  a  log  called  a  nigger- 
head — the  trees  were  divided  into  logs.  A  time  came 
when  the  whole  patch  was  strewn  with  charred  logs, 
much  too  heavy  for  one  man  to  handle  alone  readily, 
even  with  a  team  of  horses;  and  yet  it  was  necessary 
to  pile  them  up  and  burn  them  before  the  land  could  be 
cultivated.  To  get  those  logs  into  a  heap  was  the 
hardest  physical  toil  known  to  the  frontier,  and  yet  for 
the  frontiersmen  it  was  literally  a  whooping  joy.  For 
food  in  huge  quantities  (and,  if  possible,  rum  in  suffi- 
cient quantities),  was  procured  by  the  land  owner, 
and  then  the  neighbors — all  who  lived  within  twenty 
miles — were  invited  to  a  log  rolling  bee.  A  man  who 
was  not  invited  felt  seriously  offended.  By  the  dozen 
— sometimes  by  the  score — they  came  to  the  new  home. 
Those  who  could  do  so  brought  horses ;  some  brought 
oxen,  some  brought  their  wives  and  children.  In 
troops  they  flocked,  to  the  log-strewn  patch,  and  then 
with  hilarity,  energy  and  muscular  exertion  never  sur- 
passed, if  ever  equalled,  they  dragged  and  flung  the 
logs  into  heaps. 

The  children  piled  on  the  limbs  and  brush,  and 
bringing  brands  from  the  fire-place  in  the  house,  started 
fires  whose  smoke  darkened  the  heavens. 

At  noon  the  company  ate  dinner  with  a  relish,  now 
unknown,  save  only  to  a  few  (chosen  of  God  to  enjoy 
life),  who  sometimes  go  to  the  woods.  For  though 
only  corn  bread  could  be  served  with  the  wild  meat, 
they  had  appetite  and  freedom  from  care. 

Nor  was  that  all.  Though  it  was  the  heaviest  of 
work  their  muscles  were  elastic,  and  as  the  sun  went 
down  behind  the  forest ;  and  the  squirrels  leaped  from 

235 


A  History  of  the 

tree  to  tree  with  mellow  crash  within  sight  of  the 
house ;  and  the  cardinal  and  the  oriole  and  the  red  start 
flamed  and  drifted  among  the  leaves,  these  men  ban- 
tered each  other  into  wrestling  matches  and  foot  races, 
and  the  victor  in  each  leaped  on  a  stump,  flapped  his 
arms  against  his  sides,  and  crowed  like  a  rooster.  If 
a  fiddle  could  be  had,  they  ended  the  lark  with  a  "hoe- 
down" — a  dance  that  made  even  the  log-walled  house 
tremble.  When  Jackson,  the  hero  of  these  backwoods 
men,  had  beaten  the  invader  at  New  Orleans,  and  the 
people  of  the  city  gathered  to  do  him  honor  at  a  grand 
ball,  he — tall  and  lank,  and  his  wife,  short  and  round — 
danced  what  a  polished  spectator  called  a  "pas  dc  deux." 
They  danced  a  backwoods  jig  to  the  tune  of  ''Possum 
up  a  Gum  Tree" — to  the  intense  delight  and  admiration 
of  the  riflemen  who  shot  the  invader  out  of  the  swamp. 

At  weddings  (and  there  is  scant  record  of  unions 
without  weddings),  the  neighbors  made  a  bee,  and 
built  a  house  for  the  new  couple  in  the  course  of  a  few 
hours  after  the  ceremony  was  ended.  And  at  night 
they  put  the  young  couple  to  bed  with  many  a  sly  hint, 
as  well  as  good  wish. 

They  gathered  to  husk  the  corn  and  to  make  maple 
sugar.  Whatever  could  be  done  well  by  companies, 
was  done  by  them  in  companies.  No  more  indepen- 
dent or  self-reliant  individuals  were  ever  seen  on  our 
soil  than  these  home-makers  who  peopled  the  Ohio 
watershed,  and  yet  never  was  a  better  exhibit  of  the 
community  spirit  seen.  Each  was  entirely  able  to  shift 
for  himself,  but  out  of  love  for  his  neighbors,  each 
made  haste  to  lend  a  hand  at  every  gathering. 

Absolutely  necessary  to  the  outfit  of  every  fron- 
236 


iMUS.     ANDREW    JACKSON. 

Born  Rachel  Donelson,  daughter  of  Col.  John  Donelson  of  Virginia. 

In  this  portrait  she  wears  the  head-dress  in  which  she 

appeared  at  the  ball  herein  described. 


Mississippi   Valley. 

tiersman  was  the  rifle.  A  gunsmith  named  Deckhard, 
living  in  Lancaster,  Pa.,  at  some  unnamed  period  of 
the  border,  began  making  rifles  of  small  bore  in  place 
of  the  smooth-bored  musket  in  common  use.  The 
barrel  was  an  iron  tube  at  least  thirty  inches  long, 
and  usually  three  feet,  six  inches.  The  bore  was  rifled, 
had  twisting  grooves  cut  in  it,  and  the  bullet  that  fit 
the  bore  was  a  round  pellet  weighing  seventy  to  the 
pound.  In  loading  the  rifle  a  well-greased  linen  patch 
was  wrapped  around  the  bullet.  The  patch  fitted  into 
the  grooves,  and  the  bullet  was  not  mutilated  like  the 
modern  rifle  projectiles  are.  It  was  a  remarkably  ac- 
curate weapon,  though  one  requiring  more  skill  than 
a  modern  rifle,  for,  having  a  flintlock,  there  was  a 
marked  interval  between  pulling  the  trigger  and  the 
discharge  of  the  bullet,  an  interval  during  which  the 
rifle  must  be  held  on  the  target.  But  the  iron-nerved 
men  of  the  frontier  had  the  skill.  They  shot  running 
deer  at  a  range  of  150  yards.  They  killed  geese  and 
ducks,  and  even  wild  pigeons  on  the  wing.  Boys  of 
twelve  hung  their  heads  in  shame  if  detected  in  hitting 
a  squirrel  in  any  other  part  of  the  body  than  its  head. 
Though  the  bullet  was  small,  it  was  large  enough  for 
any  game  when  fired  by  the  men  that  knew  how.  One 
of  the  Zane  brothers,  who  went  with  Gen.  Butler  down 
the  Ohio  in  1785,  killed  a  buffalo  that  Butler  called  "a 
real  curiosity  for  size."  The  animal  was  more  than 
six  feet  tall  when  it  stood  erect.  Its  head,  cut  off  with 
as  little  of  the  neck  as  possible,  weighed  135  pounds. 

A  time  came  when  the  small  bullet  went  out  of 
fashion.  Plainsmen,  who  had  horses  to  ride,  wanted 
a  bore  that  would  admit  the  thumb.     But  the  Ken- 

237 


A  History  of  the 

tuckian,  who  had  to  "tote"  his  entire  outfit,  found  the 
small  bullet  better ;  five  hundred  rounds  of  ammunition 
weighed  less  than  ten  pounds.  And  in  these  last  days 
the  armies  of  the  world  are  armed  once  more  with 
small  caliber  rifles,  to  the  entire  vindication  of  the 
Boone  class  of  frontiersmen. 

Says  Dodridge  regarding  the  clothing: 
"Amongst  those  who  were  much  in  the  habit  of 
going  hunting,  and  going  on  scouts  and  campaigns, 
the  dress  of  the  men  was  partly  Indian  and  partly  that 
of  civilized  nations.  The  hunting  shirt  was  universal- 
ly worn.  This  was  a  kind  of  loose  frock,  reaching  half 
way  down  the  thighs,  with  large  sleeves,  open  before, 
and  so  wide  as  to  lap  over  a  foot  or  more  when  belted. 
The  cape  (a  wide  collar)  was  large,  and  sometimes 
handsomely  fringed  with  a  ravelled  piece  of  cloth  of 
different  color  from  that  of  the  hunting  shirt  itself. 
The  bosom  of  this  dress  served  as  a  wallet  to  hold  a 
chunk  of  bread  cakes,  jerk  (dried  meat),  tow  for  wip- 
ing the  barrel  of  the  rifle,  or  any  other  necessary  for 
hunter  or  warrior.  The  belt,  which  was  always  tied 
behind,  answered  several  purposes  besides  that  of 
holding  the  dress  together.  In  cold  weather  the  mit- 
tens, and  sometimes  the  bullet  bag,  occupied  the  front 
part  of  it.  To  the  right  side  was  suspended  the  toma- 
hawk, and  to  the  left  the  scalping  knife  with  its  leath- 
ern sheath.  The  hunting  shirt  was  generally  made  of 
linsey,  sometimes  of  coarse  linen,  and  a  few  of  dressed 
deer  skins.  These  last  were  very  cold  and  uncomfort- 
able in  wet  weather.  The  (under)  shirt  and  jacket 
were  of  the  common  fashion.  A  pair  of  drawers,  or 
breeches  and  leggins,  were  the  dress  of  the  thighs  and 

238 


A   HUNTER    WITH    A    DECKHARD    RIFLE. 
Notice  length  of  same. 


Mississippi   Valley. 

legs;  moccasins  were  nicely  adapted  (fitted)  to  the 
ankles  and  lower  parts  of  the  legs  by  thongs  of  deer 
skin,  so  that  no  dust,  gravel  or  snow  could  get  within 
the  moccasin. 

"The  moccasins  in  ordinary  use  cost  but  a  few 
hours'  (say  two)  labor  to  make  them.  This  was  done 
by  an  instrument  denominated  a  moccasin  awl,  which 
was  made  of  the  back  spring  of  an  old  clasp  knife. 
This  awl,  with  a  buckhorn  handle  was  an  appendage 
of  every  shot  pouch  strap,  together  with  a  roll  of  buck- 
skin for  mending  the  moccasins.  This  was  the  labor 
of  almost  every  evening.  They  were  sewed  together 
and  patched  with  deer  skin  thongs,  or  whangs,  as  they 
were  commonly  called. 

"In  cold  weather  the  moccasins  were  stuffed  with 
deer's  hair,  or  dry  leaves,  so  as  to  keep  the  feet  com- 
fortably warm ;  but  in  wet  weather  it  was  usually  said 
that  wearing  them  was  a  decent  way  of  going  bare- 
footed, and  such  was  the  fact,  owing  to  the  spongy 
texture  of  the  leather  of  which  they  were  made. 

"Owing  to  this  defective  covering  of  the  feet,  more 
than  to  any  other  circumstance,  the  greater  number  of 
our  hunters  and  warriors  were  afflicted  with  rheuma- 
tism in  their  limbs.  Of  this  disease  they  were  all  ap- 
prehensive in  cold  or  wet  weather,  and  therefore  al- 
ways slept  with  their  feet  to  the  fire  to  prevent  or  cure 
it  as  well  as  they  could.  This  practice  unquestionably 
had  a  salutary  effect,  and  prevented  many  of  them  be- 
coming confirmed  cripples  in  early  life. 

"In  later  years  of  the  Indian  war  our  young  men 
became  more  enamored  of  the  Indian  dress  through- 
out, with  the  exception  of  the  match   [watch?]   coat. 

239 


A  History  of  the 

The  drawers  were  laid  aside  and  the  leggins  made 
longer,  so  as  to  reach  the  upper  part  of  the  thighs. 
The  Indian  breech  clout  was  adopted.  This  was  a 
piece  of  linen  or  cloth  nearly  a  yard  long  and  eight 
or  nine  inches  broad.  This  passed  under  the  belt  be- 
fore and  behind,  leaving  the  ends  for  flaps  hanging  be- 
fore and  behind  over  the  belt.  These  flaps  were  some- 
times ornamented  with  some  kind  of  coarse  embroidery 
work.  To  the  same  belts  which  secured  the  breech 
clouts  were  attached  strings  which  supported  the  leg- 
gins.  When  this  belt,  as  was  often  the  case,  passed 
over  the  hunting  shirt,  the  upper  part  of  the  thighs 
and  part  of  the  hips  were  naked." 

The  first  woman  came  to  Kentucky  in  1775.  Af- 
ter building  the  fort  at  Boonesborough,  Daniel  Boone 
went  back  to  North  Carolina,  and  brought  his  wife, 
with  Mrs.  Denton,  Mrs.  McGarry  and  Mrs.  Hogan. 
The  journey  of  the  family  parties  into  the  wilderness 
usually  began  at  the  Holston  region.  At  Watauga, 
or  some  other  mountain  settlement  nearby,  the  horses 
were  fitted  with  pack  saddles,  and  the  goods  of  the 
family  were  piled  on  these;  for  families  rarely  went 
by  this  route  into  the  wilderness  unless  able  to  afford 
horses,  either  of  their  own  or  borrowed.  As  a  rule, 
cows  were  driven  along  as  well.  The  older  boys  had 
charge  of  the  cattle.  "The  younger  children  were 
placed  in  crates  of  hickory  withes  and  slung  across  the 
backs  of  the  old,  quiet  horses,"  though  some  found 
seats  on  top  of  the  goods  on  the  pack  horses.  Some 
of  the  women  rode,  some  walked  and  carried  their 
babies,  too.  The  men,  with  rifles  ready,  went  scouting 
through  the  woods  in  all  directions,  and  looked  after 

240 


Mississippi   Valley. 

the  pack  horses  as  well.  One  of  them  was  always 
elected  captain  of  the  band.  "Special  care  had  to  be 
taken  not  to  let  the  loaded  animals  brush  against  the 
yellow  jacket  nests,  which  were  always  plentiful  along 
the  trail  in  the  fall  of  the  year,  for  in  such  cases  the 
vicious  swarms  attacked  men  and  beasts,  producing 
an  immediate  stampede"  that  distributed  packs  and 
children  in  disordered  condition  all  over  the  region 
(Roosevelt). 

"The  linsey  petticoat  and  bed  gown  were  the  uni- 
versal dress  of  our  women  in  early  times.  A  small 
home-made  handkerchief"  was  worn  around  the  neck. 
"They  went  barefooted  in  warm  weather,  and  in  cold 
their  feet  were  covered  with  moccasins,  coarse  shoes, 
or  shoe  packs"   (Dodridge). 

"Until  flax  could  be  grown  women  were  obliged 
to  be  content  with  lint  made  from  the  bark  of  dead 
nettles.  This  was  gathered  in  the  springtime  by  all 
the  people  of  a  station  acting  together,  a  portion  of 
the  men  standing  guard,  while  the  rest,  with  the 
women  and  children,  plucked  the  dead  stalks.  The 
smart  girls  of  Irish  ancestry  spun  many  dozen  cuts  of 
linen  from  this  lint,  which  was  as  fine  as  flax  but  not 
so  strong"  (Roosevelt,  quoting  from  McAfee  Mss.). 

For  a  contrast  recall  Gayarre's  description  of 
French  life  in  Louisiana.  The  Louisiana  houses  were 
not  pretentious,  but  a  stranger  who  "passed  their 
thresholds  would  have  been  amazed  at  being  tvelcomed 
with  such  manners  as  zvere  habitual  in  the  most  pol- 
ished court  of  Europe,  and  entertained  by  men  and 
women  wearing  with  the  utmost  ease  and  grace  the 
elegant  costume  of  the  reign  of  Louis  XV. — the  pow- 

241 


A  History  of  the 

dered  head,  the  silk  and  gold  flowered  coat,  the  lace 
and  frills,  the  red-heeled  shoe,  the  steel-handled  sword, 
the  silver  knee-buckles,  the  high  and  courteous  bearing 
of  the  gentlemen;  the  hoop  petticoat,  the  brocaded 
gown,  the  rich  head-dress,  the  stately  bow,  the  slightly 
rouged  cheeks,  the  artificially  graceful  deportment 
and  the  aristocratic  features  of  the  lady." 

A  most  instructive  contrast  is  that  between  the 
dominant  people  of  Louisiana  and  those  of  the  Ohio 
watershed;  it  is  a  most  instructive  contrast.  On  the 
one  hand  stands  the  courtier  displaying  with  ease  and 
grace  his  lace  and  frills  and  red-heeled  shoes.  On  the 
other  stands  a  man  dressed  in  homespun  and  swinging 
an  ax. 

The  frontier  food  is  not  (and  it  never  was)  to  be 
passed  without  consideration.  "The  articles  of  (table) 
furniture  corresponded  very  well  with  the  articles  of 
diet  on  which  they  were  employed.  'Hog  an'  hominy* 
[hominy  is  corn  boiled  in  lye  to  remove  the  hulls, 
cleaned,  and  then  boiled  till  soft  in  pure  water]  were 
proverbial  for  the  dish  of  which  they  were  component 
parts.  Johnny  cake  [a  corruption  of  journey  cake,  a 
kind  of  corn  bread],  and  pone  [another  kind  of  corn 
bread] ,  were  the  only  forms  of  bread  in  use  for  break- 
fast and  dinner.  At  supper  milk  and  mush  formed 
the  standard  dish.  When  milk  was  not  plenty,  which 
was  often  the  case,  owing  to  the  scarcity  of  cattle  or 
the  want  of  proper  pasturage  for  them,  the  substantial 
dish  of  hominy  had  to  supply  the  place  of  them ;  mush 
was  frequently  eaten  with  sweetened  water,  molasses, 
bear's  oil  or  the  gravy  of  fried  meat. 

"Every  family,  besides  a  little  garden  for  the  few 
242 


Mississippi   Valley. 

vegetables  which  they  cultivated,  had  another  small 
enclosure,  called  the  'truck  patch,'  in  which  they  raised 
corn  for  roasting  ears,  pumpkins,  squashes,  beans  and 
potatoes.  These,  in  the  latter  part  of  the  summer  and 
fall,  were  cooked  with  their  pork,  venison  and  bear 
meat  for  dinner,  and  made  very  wholesome  and  well- 
tasted  dishes.  The  standard  dinner  for  every  log-roll- 
ing, house-raising  and  harvest  day,  was  pot  pie"  [boiled 
meats,  such  as  chickens,  grouse,  pigeons,  veal,  or  ven- 
ison with  abundant  dumplings].  What  was  left  over 
was  served  for  supper  along  with  milk  to  drink.  Tea 
and  coffee,  were,  for  a  long  time,  unseen.  When  in- 
troduced, at  last,  the  men  thought  such  "slops"  good 
enough  for  women  and  children.  As  for  themselves 
they  preferred  something  strong  enough  "to  stick  to 
the  ribs." 

Mention  has  been  made  of  the  form  of  govern- 
ment organized  by  the  Watauga  people.  In  1775  there 
was  a  similar  movement  at  Boonesborough,  Ky.  When 
Col.  Richard  Henderson  was  establishing  his  "Tran- 
sylvania" colony  at  Boonesborough,  (1775),  Lord 
Dunmore  issued  a  proclamation  warning  people  that 
the  act  was  contrary  to  the  laws  of  Virginia,  and  of 
the  Crown;  but  Henderson's  company  followed 
Daniel  Boone  to  the  site  of  Boonesborough.  It  was 
a  feudal  colony  that  Henderson  purposed  organizing — 
something  like  the  colony  that  La  Salle  ruled  for  a 
time  at  Fort  Frontenac,  and  therefore  wholly  unsuited 
to  Americans — but  certificates  for  more  than  500,000 
acres  of  land  were  issued  to  colonists  by  Henderson, 
(whence  followed  many  a  law  suit).  But  the  act  of 
this  company  most  interesting  here  is  the  fact  that, 

243 


A  History  of  the 

although  Henderson  did  not  reach  Boonesborough 
until  April  20,  he  issued  a  call  on  May  23d  to  the  set- 
tlers of  the  region  asking  them  to  send  representatives 
to  agree  upon  some  form  of  government.  And  the 
settlers  came  to  answer  the  call.  They  had  not  finished 
chinking  the  walls  of  their  log  cabins  before  they  ga- 
thered to  establish  a  system  of  lawful  government. 
They  were  to  establish  3.  system  of  government;  they 
were  not  to  be  ruled  over  by  priest  and  gold-laced 
commandant. 

On  this  primitive  legislature  the  Rev.  John  Lythe 
asked  a  blessing,  for  a  preacher  came  with  the  other 
settlers.  The  acts  passed  numbered  nine,  as  follows: 
To  establish  courts;  to  regulate  the  militia;  prescribe 
punishment  for  crimes;  to  prevent  profane  swearing 
and  Sabbath  breaking;  providing  for  writs  of  attach- 
ment ;  limiting  the  fees  of  legal  officers ;  preserving  the 
right  of  free  pasture  on  public  lands;  improving  the 
breed  of  horses ;  for  preserving  the  game.  Daniel 
Boone  prepared  the  statutes  relating  to  the  preservation 
of  game,  and  improving  the  breed  of  horses. 

There  was  a  creed  worth  consideration  in  every 
particular,  but  perhaps  the  first  thought  in  connection 
with  it  is  that  the  very  first  Kentuckians  were  full  of 
sporting  blood.  They  would  preserve  the  game  and 
improve  the  breed  of  horses.  And  as  a  matter  of  fact 
a  race  course  was  laid  out  at  Shallow  Ford  Station, 
in  that  very  year.  It  is  no  wonder  Kentucky  horses  are 
famous.  It  is  to  be  noted,  too,  that  the  game  laws  were 
aimed  against  skin  hunters — men  who  came  from  the 
settlements  east  of  the  mountains  and  killed  the  wild 
animals  for  their  skins.     These  home  makers  claimed 

244 


Mississippi    Valley. 

the  wild  animals  along  with  the  lands.  The  admirable 
non-export  laws  of  many  of  the  states  at  the  present 
time  are  founded  on  that  old  feeling. 

The  colony  of  Transylvania  as  a  legal  organiza- 
tion failed  because  the  proprietary  system  was  wrong, 
and  because  the  proprietors  did  not  have  a  legal  title 
to  the  lands;  but  the  actual  settlers  had  their  titles 
confirmed,  while  the  company  received  a  grant  of  200,- 
000  acres,  located  on  the  Ohio,  and  the  thriving  city 
of  Henderson,  Ky.,  perpetuates  the  name  of  an  enter- 
prising and  heroic,  if  mistaken  frontiersman. 

We  get  another  view  of  Kentucky  life  from  the 
records  of  Henderson's  Transylvania  company,  where- 
in sales  of  gunpowder  are  noted  at  $2.66  per  pound, 
and  lead  at  16  2-3.  The  woods  rangers  or  hunters 
employed  were  paid  thirty-three  cents  a  day ;  and  they 
worked  from  sunrise  to  sunset,  without  a  doubt.  The 
modern  definition  of  the  word  strike  was  unknown; 
for  every  man  was  man  enough  to  "hoe  his  own  row," 
regardless  of  bosses,  or  unions  or  trusts  or  other  com- 
binations made  to  wring  something  from  an  unwilling 
somebody. 

The  fees  for  acquiring  the  right  to  400  acres  of 
land,  under  the  laws  of  Virginia  amounted  to  $10,  in 
1775,  but  the  home  maker  was  obliged  to  build  a  log 
house  sufficient  for  a  dwelling,  and  raise  and  harvest 
a  crop  of  corn  in  addition.  Having  done  this  he 
could  acquire  1,000  acres  more  adjoining  his  first  claim, 
at  a  cost  of  $400. 

At  the  end  of  1775  there  were  300  men  in  Ken- 
tucky, it  is  said,  men  who  intended  to  make  homes. 
A  breadth  of  something  more  than  200  acres  of  corn 

-AS 


A  History  of  the 

had  been  harvested.  The  people  had  abundant  food, 
vigorous  health,  and  hope  that  amounted  to  enthusiasm. 
There  was  every  needed  local  indication  of  a  splendid 
development  of  the  new  settlements. 

But  another  war  was  at  hand,  and  in  it  these 
frontiersmen  were  to  have  a  memorable  part.  On  an 
unnamed  day,  while  a  party  of  Kentucky  hunters 
camped  on  a  branch  of  the  Elkhorn  river  near  the 
cabin  of  a  man  named  McConnel,  a  messenger  brought 
them  a  story  of  trouble  between  some  Massachusetts 
farmers  and  a  company  of  British  soldiers.  The  mes- 
senger said  that  the  farmers  were  gathered  with  arms 
to  resist  the  soldiers.  The  commander  of  the  soldiers 
shouted  "Disperse,  ye  villains!  Damn  you  why  don't 
you  disperse?"  But  the  men  of  Massachusetts  instead 
of  obeying  the  profane  tyrant,  attacked  the  soldiers 
and  compelled  them  to  fly  so  swiftly  that  when  rescued 
by  reinforcements  from  Boston,  their  tongues  [were], 
hanging  out  of  their  mouths  like  those  of  dogs  after 
a  chase."  That  was  a  story  to  arouse  the  enthusiasm 
of  every  American — and  especially  of  such  Americans 
as  these  backwoodsmen — and  when  the  tale  was  ended 
they  named  the  spot  on  which  they  were  encamped 
Lexington. 


246 


OUTACITE. 

A  Cherokee  chief.     The  reader  will  note  the  ar.cient 
tribal  marks  upon  his  face. 


XIV 

ON  THE  FRONTIER  DURING  THE  REVOLUTION. 

Dunmore's  Soldiers  Declared  They  Were  Ready  to  Fight 
for  American  Liberties — The  Responsibility  of  the 
British  Rulers  of  All  Ranks  for  the  Indian  Raids  on 
the  Frontier  Home-Makers — The  Cherokee  Outbreak 
— The  First  Kentucky  Colonel — Pluck  of  the  Fron- 
tier Girl — Life  in  Harrodsburg  During  the  War — 
Boone  Captured  by  the  Indians — George  Rogers 
Clark's  Memorable  Plan  for  Defending  the  Settle- 
ments. 


As  the  soldiers  undei  Lord  Dunmore  marched 
home  from  their  conquest  of  the  Indians  northwest  of 
the  Ohio,  late  in  1774,  they  paused  near  the  mouth 
of  the  Hockhocking  river,  and  the  officers  gathered 
and  "held  a  notable  meeting."  Before  entering  on 
this  campaign  they  knew  how  the  people  of  Massa- 

247 


A  History  of  the 

chusetts,  when  the  written  law  had  failed  them,  had, 
in  the  exercise  of  "the  paramount  law  of  self  preser- 
vation," assaulted  the  British  ship  Dartmouth,  on  the 
night  of  December  i6,  1773,  and  thrown  her  cargo 
of  tea  into  the  bay.  They  had  learned  further  that  five 
acts  of  brutal  oppression  had  been  passed  thereafter 
by  parliament,  and  that  a  Congress  representing  the 
colonies  had  assembled  in  Philadelphia  to  consider 
the  situation.  They  had  followed  Dunmore  to  this  war 
cheerfully.  They  were  well  enough  satisfied  with  his 
work  as  a  leader.  They  were  still  cherishing  a  feeling 
of  loyalty  to  the  King,  but  their  hearts  were  inspired 
with  the  feeling  which  prompted  Patrick  Henry  to  say, 
"Give  me  liberty  or  give  me  death,"  and  they  thought 
they  ought  to  declare  their  readiness  to  fight  for 
American  freedom  "when  regularly  called  forth  by  the 
voice  of  their  countrymen,"  and  to  say  at  the  same  time 
that  this  little  backwoods  army  "could  march  and 
fight  as  well  as  any  in  the  world." 

Among  these  officers  was  Captain  Micheal  Cresap, 
whose  murderous  assaults  on  Indians  in  time  of  peace 
had  brought  on  the  Dunmore  war,  and  he  afterward 
made  good  these  words  by  fighting  in  a  way  that  goes 
far  to  redeem  him  in  the  eyes  of  most  American  stu- 
dents of  history. 

The  five  acts  of  Parliament  that  followed  immedi- 
ately on  the  Massachusetts  appeal  to  the  "paramount 
law  of  self  preservation"  provided:  That  the  port  of 
Boston  should  be  closed  until  Massachusetts  paid  the 
owners  of  the  destroyed  tea  its  full  value;  that  the 
charter  of  the  colony  should  be  annulled  and  an  abso- 
lute despotism  substituted ;  that  any  soldier  or  revenue 

248 


Mississippi    Valley. 

officer  charged  with  kilHng  a  citizen  should  be  tried 
for  the  crime  in  England  instead  of  Massachusetts; 
that  British  troops  should  be  quartered  thereafter  in 
Boston,  and  that  all  of  the  British  territory  lying  west 
of  the  Alleghanies  and  north  of  the  Ohio  river  should 
be  added  to  Canada  and  "governed  by  a  viceroy  with 
despotic  powers."  "Such  people  as  should  come  to  live 
there  were  to  have  neither  popular  meetings,  nor  ha- 
beas corpus,  nor  freedom  of  the  press." 

This  last  act  is  known  in  history  as  the  Quebec  Bill. 
When  the  King,  in  1763,  by  proclamation,  set  aside 
this  region  as  a  royal  domain  in  which  no  land  could 
be  purchased  from  the  Indians  but  by  royal  authority, 
it  is  likely  that  he  was  moved  chiefly  by  a  desire  to 
save  the  Indians  from  imposition,  and  thus  preserve 
peace  with  them,  no  matter  what  the  Board  of  Trade 
had  in  view.  But  the  manifest  design  of  the  Quebec 
Bill  was  to  restrict  the  territorial  limits  of  the  colonies ; 
and  because  it  reaffirmed,  and  was  based  on  the  old 
French  claim  that  Canada  extended  to  and  included  the 
Ohio  Valley,  it  is  naturally  the  subject  of  much  com- 
ment among  critical  historians.  But  because  the  cur- 
rent of  events  in  the  Mississippi  was  not  changed  by 
the  Quebec  Bill,  a  mere  mention  of  it  will  suffice  here, 
and  this  chapter  may  be  devoted  wholly  to  things  done. 

It  will  help  to  a  better  comprehension  of  the  things 
done  in  the  valley  to  recall  the  fact  that  while  Hender- 
son was  laying  the  foundation  of  his  Transylvania  col- 
ony in  Kentucky,  by  buying  the  land  of  the  Cherokees, 
(March,  1775),  Parliament  was  raising  the  number 
of  British  regulars  stationed  in  the  American  colonies 
to  10,000.    In  March  and  April,  while  Boone  was  cut- 

249 


A  History  of  the 

ting  the  trail  from  Cumberland  Gap  to  Boonesborough, 
Franklin  was  on  his  way  home  from  England  because 
he  had  seen  that  war  could  not  be  averted.  It  was 
more  than  a  month  after  the  battle  of  Lexington, 
(which  occurred  on  April  19,  1775,)  that  the  fron- 
tiersmen met  at  Boonesborough,  and  established  a 
form  of  government. 

It  is  an  interesting  fact  that  the  rapid  growth  of 
population  in  Kentucky,  after  Dunmore's  war,  (1774), 
was  due  in  part  to  the  migration  of  Eastern  people 
who  were  trying  to  escape  the  disorders  of  the  grow- 
ing contest  with  England.  And  it  is  to  be  noted,  by 
the  way,  that  not  a  few  of  these  new  arrivals  were 
ne'er-do-wells,  horse  thieves  and  desperadoes,  but  in 
coming  west  most  of  these  people  made  a  very 
great  mistake,  for  those  that  wished  to  escape  war  soon 
found  the  Indians  on  their  trail,  and  the  desperadoes 
found  that  the  home  makers  recognized  the  right  of 
private  war  in  the  interests  of  order — that  disorder 
would  be  repressed  by  the  use  of  noosed  ropes  or  well- 
aimed  rifles. 

This  brings  us  to  the  most  important  feature  of  the 
American  Revolution  as  seen  in  the  IMississippi  Valley 
— the  British  use  of  the  Indians.  Any  attempt  to  gloss 
over,  or  palliate  the  acts  of  the  British  in  this  matter, 
even  though  done  to  promote  international  harmony,  is 
but  a  form  of  foolish  lying;  and  no  good  can  be  pro- 
moted by  a  lie. 

The  first  troubles  of  the  people  in  the  Ohio  Valley, 
as  a  result  of  the  Revolution,  came  through  the  success- 
ful efforts  of  the  British  agents  to  incite  the  Indians  to 
attack  the  home-makers.    And  their  last  troubles  were 

250 


Mississippi   Valley. 

due  to  the  same  cause.  In  fact  the  British  made  no 
move  in  the  Great  Valley  but  with  the  aid  of  the  In- 
dians. In  the  present  state  of  civilization,  it  is  diffi- 
cult for  many  people  to  believe  these  facts,  but  the 
truth  is  that  the  British  authorities,  from  the  King 
down  through  the  ministers,  and  the  local  rulers,  to 
the  Tory  partisans,  deliberately  approved  the  use  of 
Indians.  In  some  cases  local  officials,  gleefully  ap- 
proved, incited  and  took  part  in  Indian  raids  wherein 
women  were  outraged  and  murdered,  little  children 
were  slaughtered,  and  men  were  burned  at  the  stake. 
When  Col.  Henry  Hamilton  began  his  work  with  the 
Indians  at  Detroit,  it  appears  that  (to  quote  Winsor's 
"Westward  Movement,"  p.  iii),  he  "was  acting  in 
anticipation  of  orders  which  he  had  asked  of  Germain. 
These,  when  received, — dated  March  26,  1777 — con- 
formed to  Hamilton's  suggestions,  and  directed  him  to 
organize  Indian  raids  against  the  frontier.  We  have 
his  own  statement  (made)  in  the  following  July,  that 
he  had  up  to  that  date  sent  out  fifteen  distinct  parties 
on  such  fiendish  errands." 

The  facts  in  this  matter  shall  be  given  as  briefly 
as  possible,  but  to  see,  first  of  all,  that  the  humanity 
of  the  British  in  authority  was  on  a  level  where  these 
things  were  possible,  it  is  necessary  only  that  the  reader 
recall  a  few  such  acts  of  the  British  troops  in  the  east 
as  the  first  foray  into  Jersey,  where  they  "set  fire  to 
farm  houses,  murdered  peaceful  citizens  and  violated 
women ;"  the  acts  of  Gen.  Richard  Prescott,  who,  when 
he  took  possession  of  Newport,  "encouraged  his  sol- 
diers in  plundering  houses  and  offering  gross  insults 
to  ladies ;"  the  capture  of  Norfolk  where  "every  house 

251 


A  History  of  the 

was  burned  to  the  ground,  many  unarmed  citizens 
were  murdered,  and  delicate  ladies  were  abandoned  to 
the  diabolical  passions  of  the  soldiery."  The  quota- 
tions are  from  Fiske's  "American  Revolution,"  One 
notable  British  historian,  quoted  by  Fiske,  says  dis- 
tinctly that  the  Americans  would  have  been  justified  in 
refusing  to  give  quarter,  when  Stony  Point  was  taken, 
and  thereby,  as  Fiske  points  out,  portrays  the  level  of 
his  own  civilization  and  that  of  people  who  approve  his 
words. 

It  is  now  coming  to  be  understood,  even  among 
the  most  obtuse  observers  in  Europe,  that  American 
armies  have  always  shown  marvelous  efficiency,  even 
after  brief  training,  because  every  man  in  the  ranks  has 
always  fully  understood  the  cause  of  the  war  in  hand, 
and  fully  approved  the  object  for  which  it  was  waged, 
and  felt  and  manifested  the  keenest  personal  interest 
in  the  success  of  his  arms.  In  other  words,  American 
armies  have  been  composed  of  united  thinking  men, 
instead  of  well-trained,  unthinking  brutes.  But  it  is 
not  yet  understood  that  this  personal  knowledge  of  the 
causes  of  the  conflict  and  this  personal  interest  in  the 
result  necessarily  led  to  lasting  indignation  and  prej- 
udice. This  is  not  to  commend  or  even  excuse  lasting 
anger  and  prejudice;  it  is  to  deplore  them  and  to  point 
out  that  these  are  among  the  chiefest  of  the  inevitable 
evils  of  any  war  involving  a  thinking  people.  It  is 
also  worth  observing  that  when  the  cause  of  ill-feeling 
is  known,  a  remedy  may  often  be  found. 

Americans  came  to  feel  "a  deadly  and  lasting 
hatred  which  their  sons  and  grandsons  inherited,"  not 
because  the  Indians  were  employed  to  fight  American 

252 


Mississippi    Valley. 

soldiers,  as  when  Carlton  employed  them  to  fight 
Arnold  on  Lake  Champlain.  Americans  did  as  much. 
It  was  because  the  Indians  zvere  deliberately  sent 
against  zvomen  and  children.  This  point  is  to  be  most 
carefully  considered.  "God  and  nature  hath  put  into 
our  hands  the  scalping  knife  and  tomahawk,  to  torture 
them  into  unconditional  submission,"  said  the  Earl 
of  Suffolk  (Almon's  Remembrancer,  viii.,  p.  328). 
A  price  was  put  on  scalps,  and  a  woman's  scalp  was 
purchased  as  readily  as  a  man's.  The  Indians  received 
various  prices  for  the  scalps  brought  in,  but  the  white 
marauders  who  went  on  raid  with  the  Indians  received 
"a  bounty  of  200  acres  of  land,"  (Winsor's  "Westward 
Movement,"  p.  11 1).  The  British  officers,  among 
whom  Col.  Hamilton,  commander  at  Detroit  was  most 
infamous,  sent  out  the  Indians  for  the  deliberate  and 
openly-declared  purpose  of  "driving  in"  the  frontier 
homemakers  and  depopulating  the  newly-settled  dis- 
tricts. 

"Hamilton  and  his  subordinates,  both  red  and 
white,  were  engaged  in  what  was  essentially  an  effort 
to  exterminate  the  borderers,"  says  Roosevelt  in  "Win- 
ning the  West."  It  was  "a  war  of  extermination 
waged  with  appalling  and  horrible  cruelty."  "It 
brings  out  in  bold  relief  the  fact  that  in  the  West  the 
the  War  of  the  Revolution  was  an  effort  on  the  part 
of  Great  Britain  to  stop  the  westward  growth  of  the 
English  race  in  America,  and  to  keep  the  region  be- 
yond the  Alleghanies  as  a  region  where  only  savages 
should  dwell." 

"Few,  if  any,  British  officers  brought  themselves 
so  much  under  severe  criticism   for  inciting  savage 

253 


A  History  of  the 

barbarities  as  Governor  Hamilton.  He  sang  war 
songs  with  the  braves,  he  made  gifts  to  parties  return- 
ing with  scalps.  *  *  *  His  glee  at  the  successful 
outcome  of  savage  raids  was  not  unshared  by  many  in 
the  royal  service,"  says  Winsor  in  "The  Westward 
Movement,"  p.  127. 

When  Hamilton  was  captured,  he  was  sent  to  Vir- 
ginia, where  his  conduct  was  investigated  by  the  Coun- 
cil of  Virginia.  In  their  report  the  Council  say :  "The 
board  find  that  Governor  Hamilton  gave  standing  re- 
wards for  scalps,  but  offered  none  for  prisoners, 
which  induced  the  Indians,  after  making  the  captives 
carry  their  baggage  into  the  neighborhood  of  the  fort, 
there  put  them  to  death,  and  carry  in  their  scalps  to 
the  governor,  who  welcomed  their  return  and  suc- 
cesses by  a  discharge  of  cannon." 

This  was  a  judicial  investigation  made  by  men  who 
were  not  frontiersmen,  to  determine  what  treatment 
Hamilton  should  receive  as  a  prisoner.  The  evidence 
of  Hamilton's  inhumanity  led  to  his  imprisonment  in 
irons. 

In  order  to  palliate  these  admitted  facts,  some 
writers  note  that  even  Hamilton  was  in  the  habit  of 
telling  the  Indians,  as  he  sent  them  forth,  that  they 
should  spare  the  women  and  children.  There  is  no 
doubt  that  Hamilton  did  do  that,  but  when  these  same 
warriors  returned  with  the  blood  of  women  and  chil- 
dren on  their  tomahawks,  Hamilton  joined  in  their 
rejoicing  and  rewarded  them. 

In  view  of  this  rejoicing  over  the  slaughter  of  the 
innocents,  there  can  be  but  one  interpreting  of  his  habit 
of  telling  the  Indians,  as  he  sent  them  forth,  not  to  kill 

254 


Mississippi   Valley. 

women  and  children.  He  did  it  for  the  sole  purpose 
of  throwing  dust  in  the  eyes  of  critics  who  might  come, 
eventually,  to  call  him  to  account  for  his  barbarity. 
He  was  animated  by  a  regard  for  "appearances,"  as 
Dumas  was,  when  in  command  at  Ft.  Duquesne.  In- 
stead of  his  words  palliating  his  conduct,  they  do  but 
blacken  it;  for  they  show  his  hypocrisy. 

The  first  outbreak  of  the  savages  during  the  Revo- 
lution was  in  June,  1776,  when  the  Cherokees,  on 
receiving  jRfty  horse  loads  of  ammunition  from  the 
British,  were  induced  to  go  to  war.  It  was  an  out- 
break due  solely  to  the  desire  to  ravage  the  frontier 
of  the  Patriots,  for  there  was  no  British  army  in  the 
South,  at  the  time,  and  no  success  which  the  Indians 
could  attain  would  serve  in  the  remotest  degree  to 
return  the  colonists  to  their  allegiance  to  the  King. 

The  Cherokees  numbered  2,400  warriors  at  the 
time,  it  is  said — more  than  twice  the  force  that  Old 
Cornstalk  had  in  his  great  fight  at  Point  Pleasant. 
Dividing  this  force  into  large  parties  (the  party  that 
attacked  the  Watauga  settlements  numbered  700),  they 
came  upon  the  frontier  like  packs  of  wolves.  The 
home-makers  fled  toward  the  forted  villages,  whenever 
warning  came  to  them  in  time,  but  many  an  unfortun- 
ate knew  nothing  of  the  danger  until  the  painted  war- 
riors were  upon  him.  Cameron,  the  British  agent,  and 
a  number  of  tories  were  with  some  of  the  red  bands, 
but  it  is  likely  that  their  presence  added  to  the  horrors 
of  the  raids;  at  any  rate  the  women  and  children 
slaughtered  outnumbered  the  men,  and  many  of  the 
men  slain  were  unarmed.  That  men  were  burned  at 
the  stake  scarcely  need  be  said,  but  it  is  recorded  that 

255 


A  History  of  the 

one  boy  was  carried  from  a  Watauga  home,  and  at 
Tuskega  was  slowly  tortured  to  death;  and  a  woman 
would  have  been  served  in  like  manner,  but  for  the 
humanity  of  one  squaw,  known  as  Nancy  Ward,  who, 
having  great  influence  In  her  tribe,  interfered  with 
success.  Of  the  cattle  that  were  killed,  homes  burned 
and  fields  wasted,  mere  mention  is  necessary. 

Naturally  the  first  settlers  to  strike  back  were  those 
of  the  Watauga  region.  While  nearly  all  of  the  stock- 
ades in  that  region  had  no  more  than  men  enough  for 
successful  defence,  that  in  Eaton's  Station  had  some 
to  spare,  and  these  could  not  remain  cooped  up.  Sally- 
ing out  on  the  morning  of  July  20,  1776,  in  a  band 
170  strong,  they  found  a  party  of  Indians  near  their 
Island  flats,  but  failed  to  get  even  one  of  them. 

It  seemed  improbable  that  any  damage  could  be 
inflicted  on  the  Indians  after  they  had  learned  the 
whites  were  out,  and  the  whites  turned  back  to  the 
fort.  Then  the  Indians,  seeing  the  whites  turn,  sup- 
posed them  panic  stricken,  and  raising  the  war  whoop, 
came  in  a  mass  of  a  hundred  or  so,  led  by  the  famous 
chief,  Dragging  Canoe ;  they  were  expecting  to  slaugh- 
ter the  whole  company  of  whites,  but  the  whites 
formed  in  line  and  allowed  the  Indians  to  come  until 
within  easy  range.  Then  they  opened  a  shriveling  fire 
which  turned  the  wild  war  whoops  into  howls  of  dis- 
may. Yet  the  Indians  carried  off  their  wounded 
(among  whom  was  Dragging  Canoe),  and  presumably 
most  of  their  dead,  for  the  whites  got  but  thirteen 
scalps.  Four  settlers  were  wounded  badly,  but  none 
killed.  It  was  one  of  the  rare  occasions  where  the 
Indian  losses  exceeded  those  of  the  whites. 

256 


Mississippi    Valley. 

About  this  time  a  party  from  the  Wolf  Hills  Fort 
took  eleven  red  scalps  which  they  hung  above  the  fort 
gate,  Indian  fashion.  The  Watauga  fort,  where  Rob- 
ertson and  John  Sevier  were,  had  no  more  than  fifty 
men,  and  remained  on  the  defensive.  Some  would 
go  forth,  however,  and  three  or  four  were  killed,  and 
the  boy  who  was  burned  at  Tuskega,  was  captured. 
One  girl — Kate  Sherrill — "brown  haired,  comely,  tall, 
lithe  and  supple,"  would  go  down  to  the  stream,  one 
day,  and  the  Indians  who  were  in  hiding  nearby, 
dashed  forth  to  capture  her. 

It  was  a  most  thrilling  race,  for  they  headed  her 
away  from  the  gate;  but  nothing  daunted,  she  ran 
straight  to  the  palisades,  leaped  up,  caught  two  pointed 
tops,  and  drawing  herself  up,  tumbled  over,  and 
dropped  into  the  arms  of  John  Sevier,  who  had  shot 
her  foremost  pursuer,  meantime,  and  who  was  stand- 
ing ready  to  catch  her. 

Sevier  at  this  time  was  a  widower,  and  one  of  the 
most  popular  men  of  the  country.  Kate  was  one  of 
the  most  charming  girls  of  all  the  mountain  region. 
So  John  and  Kate  were  married,  and  the  girl  who 
could  mount  a  twelve-foot  palisade  became  the  first 
lady  of  Tennessee,  for  Sevier  was  elected  Governor 
as  soon  as  the  State  was  admitted  to  the  Union. 

One  of  the  most  interesting  features  of  frontier 
life  is  found  in  the  stories  of  loves  and  marriages  that 
followed  the  gatherings  of  families  into  the  forts  dur- 
ing the  Indian  raids — raids  that  were  made  to  depop- 
ulate the  frontier. 

The  raids  east  of  the  mountains  roused  the  inhab- 
itants.    The  militia  were  called  out  by  the  thousand, 

257 


A  History  of  the 

and  then  in  due  course  the  Cherokee  towns  were  raided 
in  turn.  And  a  Cherokee  town  was  not  Hke  a  collec- 
tion of  bark  shelters  found  in  the  north,  for  the  Chero- 
kees  built  good  log  houses  and  cultivated  large  fields. 
They  were  civilizing  themselves  steadily,  if  slowly, 
and  the  return  raids  made  into  their  country,  inflicted 
such  serious  damage  that  the  majority  of  the  Chero- 
kees  had  to  flee  for  succor  to  the  Creeks  and  live  on 
charity,  during  the  ensuing  winter.  They  were  chas- 
tised in  a  way  that  compelled  the  clans  to  keep  the 
peace  for  several  years. 

And  yet  old  Dragging  Canoe  refused  to  join  in 
the  peace.  Going  down  to  the  Chickamauga,  he  gath- 
ered the  outlaws  of  every  clan  and  tribe  of  red  men, 
with  bloodthirsty  desperadoes  from  among  the  Tories, 
and  there  established  a  pirate  community.  In  the 
course  of  the  fighting,  however,  the  Cherokees  lost 
200  men  killed,  while  the  whites  lost  as  many  men, 
and  more  than  200  women  and  children. 

Meantime  the  Kentuckians  were  organizing  their 
country  as  a  county  of  Virginia.  At  a  gathering  in 
Harrodsburg,  in  the  middle  of  June,  1776,  they  elected 
George  Rogers  Clark  (the  youth  who  had  been  under 
Cresap  in  the  murderous  attack  on  Indians  below 
Wheeling,  in  1774),  and  one  other  man  to  carry  a 
petition  to  the  Virginia  legislature.  This  petition  was 
dated  June  20,  1776,  and  the  most  interesting  para- 
graph in  it  was  that  which  pointed  out  "how  impolitic 
it  would  be  to  suffer  such  a  Respectable  Body  of 
Prime  Riflemen  to  remain  in  a  state  of  neutrality" 
while  the  United  Colonies  were  in  a  desperate  struggle 
for  liberty. 

258 


Mississippi   Valley. 

Clark  succeded  in  his  mission.  Kentucky  was  ad- 
mitted as  a  county,  with  Harrodsburg  as  the  county 
town.  The  miHtia  were  organized,  and  John  Bowman 
was  placed  in  command  with  the  rank  of  colonel — the 
name  of  the  first  Kentucky  colonel  is,  doubtless,  a 
matter  of  National,  if  not  of  world-wide,  interest. 

In  the  meantime,  Delaware,  Shawnee  and  Mingo 
(the  Iroquois  of  the  Ohio)  chiefs  had  assembled  at 
the  forks  of  the  Ohio,  and  declared  for  neutrality  in 
the  conflict  between  the  colonies  and  England,  but 
that  was  a  position  they  could  not  hold.  Col.  Henry 
Hamilton,  with  abundant  supplies  of  goods  for  pres- 
ents, and  money  for  the  purchase  of  scalps,  was  at 
work  to  incite  the  Indians  to  raid  the  home  makers. 
The  colonies  had  little  money  for  any  purpose — they 
could  not  compete  with  this  well-supplied  official  in 
bargaining  for  the  favor  of  these  red  men.  Besides 
the  commissioners  of  Congress  were  trying  to  keep 
them  neutral  only.  Hamilton  offered  them  the  still 
greater  delight  of  shedding  the  blood  of  unarmed  men, 
and  helpless  women  and  children.  After  the  training 
which  the  Indians  had  received  at  the  hands  of  the 
whites,  during  the  preceding  150  years,  there  could 
be  no  question  as  to  the  course  they  would  pursue. 

During  1776  small  parties  of  the  Ohio  Indians 
began  making  raids  into  Kentucky  and  other  parts  of 
the  frontier.  Numbers  of  Ottawas,  Pottawattomies  and 
Chippewas,  the  raptores  of  the  Great  Lakes,  came  to 
the  feasts  of  blood  and  plunder. 

One  story  of  these  raiders  in  1776  may  be  told  to 
show  the  pluck  of  the  frontier  girl.  On  July  14,  five 
Indians  carried  off  Boone's  daughter,  Jemima,  with 

259 


A  History  of  the 

Betsy  and  Fanny  Calloway.  The  Indians  made  the 
girls  wade  in  brooks,  and  took  pains  to  obliterate  the 
trail  in  every  way,  but  Betsy  Calloway,  in  spite  of 
the  uplifted  tomahawks,  kept  breaking  twigs  and  rip- 
ping off  bits  of  her  dress  to  catch  the  eyes  of  those 
she  knew  would  follow.  And  so  a  party,  led  by  Boone, 
and  including  the  lovers  of  the  three  girls,  came  upon 
the  Indians,  late  the  next  day,  as  they  were  preparing 
to  cook  a  buffalo  calf  they  had  killed,  and  shot  two  of 
them.  The  three  who  were  untouched  fled,  almost 
naked  and  without  any  weapon,  into  the  forest  and 
escaped. 

The  fighting,  when  a  band  of  200  Indians  came 
to  Wheeling  on  the  morning  of  September  2,  1777, 
showed  the  metal  of  the  frontiersmen.  They  arrived 
at  daylight,  a  thick  fog  aiding  them  materially.  A 
little  later  a  white  man  and  a  negro  left  the  fort  to 
bring  in  some  horses  from  a  pasture.  A  party  of  six 
Indians  waylaid  the  two  men  and  killed  one  of  them. 
One,  it  appears,  was  allowed  to  escape  in  order  that 
he  might  bring  out  a  party  to  attack  the  six,  with  the 
idea  that  they  were  a  small  band  of  raiders.  Anyway, 
fifteen  men  left  the  fort  to  hunt  the  Indians,  and  before 
them  the  six  Indians  fled  until  the  white  men  were  led 
into  an  ambush.  Then  the  Indians  in  hiding  rose  up 
with  the  war  whoop,  and  closed  in.  But,  although 
outnumbered  more  than  twelve  to  one,  the  trapped 
men  refused  to  yield.  Twelve  died  fighting,  and  three 
escaped  by  hiding  in  the  brush.  A  party  of  twelve 
that  came  from  the  fort  to  aid  the  fifteen  were  also 
trapped,  but  of  these  four  escaped  to  the  brush. 

The  men  now  remaining  in  the  fort  numbered  no 
260 


Mississippi   Valley. 

more  than  fourteen,  but  the  Zane  brothers,  who  were 
too  humane  and  just  to  take  part  in  the  murders  pre- 
ceding Lord  Dunmore's  War,  were  among  them.  The 
Indians  came  to  the  dwelHngs  that  stood  near  the  fort 
and  called  on  the  whites  to  surrender,  but  the  whites 
replied  by  firing  at  every  patch  of  red  skin  that  came 
in  view.  The  women  aided  the  men  by  running  bul- 
lets, by  cooling  the  heated  guns  and  even  by  taking 
places  at  the  port-holes  to  fire  at  the  red  men. 

Knowing  that  the  force  of  settlers  was  small,  the 
Indians  came  boldly  to  the  fort  gate,  carrying  a  log 
for  a  battering  ram ;  but  their  dash  failed  because  of 
the  deadly  aim  of  the  defenders.  All  that  day  and  the 
following  night  the  Indians  raged  vainly  around  the 
fort.  The  next  morning  a  small  relief  party  (thirteen 
or  fifteen  men),  came  to  the  fort  by  way  of  the  river, 
and  a  little  later  a  party  of  forty  men,  led  by  Major 
Samuel  McCulloch,  arrived  on  horseback.  As  this 
party  approached  the  fort,  McCulloch  was  cut  off 
from  his  men.  The  Indians  were  so  close  to  him  that 
the  only  way  of  escape  led  toward  the  top  or  crest  of 
a  "slipbank,"  300  feet  high,  and  steep  and  rocky.  But 
McCulloch  galloped  to  the  brink,  and  plunging  head- 
long down,  he  reached  the  bottom  safely  and  crossed 
the  flats  to  the  fort.  The  precipice  is  there  yet,  but  the 
slope  is  moderate  in  these  days. 

Harrodsburg  was  under  fire  nearly  all  the  summer 
of  1777,  the  besieging  parties  of  Indians  coming  in 
such  quick  succession  that  the  people  of  the  neighbor- 
hood were  unable  to  raise  any  crops,  save  a  few  tur- 
nips. 

On  one  occasion  the  uneasiness  of  the  cattle  (cattle 
261 


A  History  of  the 

always  showed  fear  when  they  smelled  Indians),  gave 
them  warning,  and  they  were  able  to  attack  a  party 
of  Indians  who  were  trying  to  ambush  some  men  at 
work  in  a  field.  Three  of  the  Indians  were  killed,  one 
by  George  Rogers  Clark,  who  was  in  the  fort  almost 
all  summer.  The  plunder  these  Indians  left  behind 
was  sold  at  auction  for  £70. 

The  siege  here  was  so  close,  at  times,  that  the  peo- 
ple were  at  the  point  of  starvation.  The  most  skillful 
woodsmen  tried  sneaking  away  from  the  fort  at  night 
to  get  game,  but  so  many  were  caught  and  killed,  that 
a  time  came  when  no  more  men  could  be  spared.  In 
this  emergency,  James  Ray,  a  lad  of  seventeen  years, 
begged  permission  to  try,  and  because  of  a  previous 
adventure,  he  was  allowed  to  go.  In  the  previous 
adventure,  Ray,  with  two  other  boys,  had  been  at 
work,  in  a  field  four  miles  from  the  fort,  when  a  pack 
of  forty-seven  Indians,  under  a  chief  named  Black- 
fish,  attacked  them.  The  two  boys  with  Ray  were 
killed,  but  Ray,  in  a  four-mile  race  for  Hfe,  fairly  and 
easily  outran  the  whole  pack.  The  hungry  settlers  in 
the  fort  thought  that  one  who  could  run  as  he  could 
might  escape;  so  they  let  him  try  for  game. 

In  the  dark  hour  just  before  day,  this  boy  led  an 
old  horse  from  the  fort  into  the  river,  and  then  by 
riding  continually  in  the  stream  or  its  branches  to 
conceal  his  trail,  he  reached  safe  hunting  grounds  and 
killed  a  load  of  meat.  This  he  brought  to  the  fort  by 
the  same  trail,  and  so  succored  the  famishing  garrison. 
And  these  expeditions  were  made  time  and  again  with- 
out the  Indians  learning  anything  about  them. 

Nevertheless,  Ray  was  at  last  to  have  about  the 
262 


Mississippi   Valley. 

narrowest  escape  of  any  of  the  people  in  Kentucky. 
A  man  named  McConnel  was  out  trying  his  rifle  at 
a  mark,  with  Ray  beside  him,  at  a  time  when  the  peo- 
ple supposed  no  Indians  were  near.  But  suddenly  a 
shot  from  the  brush  killed  McConnel,  and  then  a  great 
body  of  Indians  leaped  out  to  take  the  boy. 

For  150  yards  the  boy  ran,  with  the  Indians  so 
close  to  him  that  the  people  in  the  fort  were  obliged 
to  close  the  gate  lest  the  Indians  enter  with  him.  But 
as  the  gate  closed,  the  garrison  opened  fire,  and  the 
Indians  stopped,  while  Ray  threw  himself  flat  on  the 
the  ground  behind  a  stump,  near  the  bottom  log  of  one 
of  the  cabins  that  formed  the  fort  wall. 

His  peril,  however,  was  now  greater  than  before, 
because,  on  seeing  they  could  not  capture  him,  the 
Indians  opened  fire.  To  try  to  rise  and  run  for  the 
gate  was  but  to  give  the  Indians  a  better  chance  to 
kill  him,  and  to  lie  still  was  to  be  reached  by  a  bullet,, 
sooner  or  later. 

Nevertheless,  his  wit  was  sufficient  for  the  occa- 
sion. 

"For  God's  sake,  dig  a  hole  under  the  wall  and 
take  me  in,"  he  shouted,  and  in  a  few  minutes  the  work 
was  done,  and  he  was  safe.  He  lived  to  be  governor 
of  the  state. 

It  was  a  perilous  summer,  but  in  the  course  of  it^ 
George  Rogers  Clark  sent  two  spies  among  the  French 
of  Illinois,  and  in  a  diary  that  he  kept  is  found  this 
entry : 

"July  9 — Lieutenant  Linn  married,  great  merri- 
ment." 

Boone  says  "Col.  Harrod's  fort  was  then  defended 
263 


A  History  of  the 

by  only  sixty-five  men,  and  Boonesborough  by  twenty- 
two,  there  being  no  more  forts  or  white  men  in  the 
country,  except  at  the  Falls,  a  considerable  distance 
from  these,  *  *  *  but  a  handful  to  the  numerous  war- 
riors that  everywhere  dispersed  through  the  country." 
i  And  yet  in  spite  of  the  "numerous  warriors,"  a 
party  of  forty-five  men — home  seekers — came  in  from 
North  Carolina,  arriving  on  July  25,  1777,  and  a 
hundred  more  arrived  on  August  20. 

Early  in  1778,  while  making  salt  at  the  Blue  Licks, 
Daniel  Boone  and  a  party  were  captured  by  a  band 
of  eighty  Miamis,  and  were  taken  to  Detroit.  Because 
Boone  was  such  a  famous  frontiersman,  Hamilton 
tried  to  ransom  him,  but  the  Indians  preferred  to 
adopt  him,  and  thus  gave  him  a  chance  to  escape. 

This  chance  came  just  as  the  Indians  were  prepar- 
ing to  start  in  large  force  on  a  raid  into  Kentucky. 
Boone  traveled  160  miles  in  four  days,  eating  but  one 
meal  during  the  time.  Knowing  that  Boone  would 
prepare  the  settlements  for  the  attack,  the  raiders 
remained  at  home. 

Boone  was  raised  to  the  rank  of  Major  in  the  militia 
on  his  return. 

On  August  8,  1778,  the  Indians  came  to  Boones- 
borough with  a  force  of  more  than  300  under  a  French 
partisan  named  Daigniau  de  Quindre.  There  were 
eleven  other  French  soldiers  of  fortune  in  the  band. 

By  asking  for  time  in  which  to  consider  a  demand 
for  surrender,  Boone  was  able  to  put  the  fort  into  good 
condition,  and  then  he  laughed  at  the  simple  French- 
men. In  return  the  Frenchmen  persuaded  Boone  and 
eight  others  to  come  out  and  meet  nine  Frenchmen 

264 


Mississippi    Valley. 

and  nine  Indians  to  discuss  a  treaty  of  peace.  All  met 
unarmed  according  to  agreement,  but  the  Frenchmen 
and  Indians  tried  to  carry  off  the  Kentuckians  bare- 
handed. 

Of  course  they  failed,  for  no  two  men  of  any  other 
race  could,  (or  can),  carry  off,  barehanded,  an  Ameri- 
can frontiersman.  An  effort  to  run  a  tunnel  under  the 
fort  was  blocked,  and  the  invaders  went  away  deeply 
humiliated.  Many  other  stories  of  raids  of  similar 
character  are  found  in  the  annals,  but  as  they  were 
much  alike,  and  none  had  any  lasting  effect  on  the 
ultimate  isues  of  the  war,  no  more  shall  be  given  here. 

In  the  meantime  the  spies  sent  by  George  Rogers 
Clark  had  returned  to  Harrodsburg  with  the  news  that 
Kaskaskia  and  other  British  posts  in  the  Illinois  coun- 
try were  but  feebly  manned,  and  that  the  French  popu- 
lation had  very  little  love  for  their  British  rulers, 
though  they  had  been  taught  to  believe  the  American 
frontiersmen,  (known,  by  the  way,  as  the  Long 
Knives),  were  devils  incarnate  for  fighting,  and  mon- 
sters for  cruelty  and  rapacity. 

To  Clark  this  news  was  most  cheering,  for  he 
could  now  see  his  way  to  success  in  an  expedition  to 
the  Illinois  country.  Whether  or  not  Clark  then  saw 
the  tremendous  results  involved  in  the  capture  of  the 
British  posts  is  a  question  which  has  been  discussed, 
but  this  much  is  undoubted :  Clark  saw  that  the  way 
to  defend  the  Kentucky  settlements  from  aggression 
was  to  capture  the  British  posts  from  ivhich  the  raids 
were  made.  One  summer  passed  within  the  walls  of 
Harrodsburg  fort  was  all  of  the  porcupine  style  of 
fighting  that  he  wanted.     He  determined  to  fight  the 

265 


A  History  of  the 

wolves  in  their  dens,  and  what  he  accompHshed  shall 
be  told  in  the  next  chapter. 

But  before  passing  to  the  achievements  of  this 
hero  of  the  frontier  it  is  worth  while  noting  that  there 
were  a  few  wolves  among  the  Americans.  While  the 
British  were  still  bargaining  with  the  red  men,  Old 
Cornstalk,  the  red  warrior  who  led  his  host  with  con- 
summate skill  at  the  battle  of  Point  Pleasant,  and  with 
his  words,  "Be  strong!  Be  strong!"  gave  courage  to 
the  weak  through  all  that  deadly  strife,  now  favored 
the  Americans  by  speeches  in  council ;  and  in  every 
way  possible,  he  opposed  the  British  agents.  Finally, 
when  he  saw  that  he  must  fail,  he  went  to  Fort  Ran- 
dolph, at  Point  Pleasant,  to  give  the  officers  there  due 
warning.  A  young  chief  named  Red  Hawk  went  with 
him.  In  spite  of  Cornstalk's  friendly  act  he  was  im- 
prisoned, and  when  his  son  Ellinipsico  came  to  learn 
why  the  old  chief  did  not  return  home,  he  too  was 
held  a  prisoner. 

The  next  day  after  Ellinipsico  arrived,  two  men 
from  the  garrison,  while  hunting  on  the  farther  side 
of  the  Kanawha,  were  ambushed  by  Indians,  and  one 
was  killed.  To  avenge  the  death  of  this  man,  the 
militia  ran  to  the  quarters  where  the  unarmed  Corn- 
stalk and  his  son,  and  Red  Hawk,  were  confined,  work- 
ing up  their  passions  the  while,  with  shouts  and  yells. 

The  coming  rabble  frightened  the  son,  but  old 
Cornstalk,  whose  courage  had  never  faltered,  said : 

"My  son,  the  Great  Spirit  has  seen  fit  that  we 
should  die  together,  and  has  sent  you  here  to  that 
end.  It  is  His  will,  and  let  us  submit — it  is  all  for 
the  best." 

266 


GEORGE  ROGERS  CLARK. 

From  an  oil-paintinsj  in  the  possession  of  Vincennes  University,  Ind., 

said  to  be  the  only  portrait  from  life  now  in  existence. 


XV 


THE  WORK  OF  GEORGE  ROGERS  CLARK. 


The  Expedition  that  Acquired  for  the  United  States  All 
the  Territory  Between  the  Ohio  River,  the  Great 
Lakes  and  the  Mississippi  Was  Started  on  a  Cash 
Capital  of  £  1,200 — The  Lone  Stranger  that  Stood  in 
the  Doorway  of  the  Ball  Room  at  Kaskaskia,  and 
the  Effect  of  His  Appearances  on  the  Dancers — A 
Bit  of  Acting  that  Was  Far  More  Effective  than 
Gunshots — A  Striking  Comparison  of  the  "Hair- 
Buyer"  Hamilton  with  George  Rogers  Clark. 

During  all  the  time  that  George  Rogers  Clark  was 
planning,  in  Harrodsburg,  his  attack  on  the  British 
posts  of  the  Northwest,  he  did  not  give  any  one  so 
much  as  a  hint  of  what  was  on  his  mind.  Even  the 
spies  who  went  to  Kaskaskia  thought  they  were  making 
this  adventuresome  trip  in  the  interests  of  trade.    With 

267 


A  History  of  the 

equal  reticence  he  left  Harrodsburg  on  October  i, 
1777,  and  started  alone  over  the  Wilderness  Road,  to 
Old  Virginia,  to  obtain  men  and  supplies  for  the 
meditated  expedition, 

Clark  arrived  in  Williamsburg,  Virginia's  capital, 
at  an  auspicious  time.  Burgoyne,  through  the  well- 
laid  plans  of  Schuyler  and  the  hard  fighting  of  Stark, 
Morgan  and  Arnold,  had  been  compelled  to  surrender 
his  entire  army,  and  "things  seemed  to  wear  a  pleasant 
aspect,"  in  consequence. 

On  December  10,  Clark  laid  his  plans  before  Gover- 
nor Patrick  Henry.  The  man  who  had  said  "Give  me 
liberty  or  give  me  death !"  was  able  to  appreciate  the 
splendid  project,  and  when  Thomas  Jefferson,  George 
Mason  and  George  Wythe  were  called  on  they  also 
gave  it  hearty  approval. 

Only  these  men  learned  that  such  an  expedition  was 
contemplated.  Clark  was  made  a  Colonel  in  the  Vir- 
ginia militia,  and  he  received  £1,200  in  depreciated 
currency  for  expenses.  An  expedition  to  take  posses- 
sion of  all  the  region  between  the  Ohio,  the  Great 
Lakes  and  the  Mississippi  was  started  with  a  cash  cap- 
ital of  £1,200  in  depreciated  currency! 

If  there  is  anything  in  history  that  can  convert  the 
fool  who  says  in  his  heart  there  is  no  God,  it  is  the 
story  of  the  American  Revolution.  That  pitiful  sum 
was  sufficient  for  George  Rogers  Clark.  What  he 
lacked  in  cash  he  made  up  with  his  youthful  energy  and 
hopefulness,  for  he  was  only  twenty-five  years  old. 
Taking  his  money  he  went  to  Pittsburg,  authorized  to 
enlist  700  men,  ostensibly  to  defend  Kentucky  from  in- 
vasion, and  with  his  utmost  efforts  was  able  to  fill  three 

268 


Mississippi   Valley. 

companies  of  fifty  men  each.  With  these,  and  the 
rumor  that  four  companies  had  been  raised  in  Ken- 
tucky, he  took  boats  and  went  down  the  Ohio  River  to 
the  Falls,  (Louisville),  where  he  landed  on  Corn 
Island,  May  27,  1778.  Instead  of  four  companies,  he 
found  less  than  100  men,  and  when,  at  last,  public  an- 
nouncement of  the  object  of  the  expedition  was  made, 
a  considerable  number  of  these  deserted. 

And  yet,  after  building  a  fort,  Clark  divided  his 
force  in  order  to  garrison  the  island  and  protect  some 
settlers  who  had  come  down  the  river  with  him  to 
make  homes  there.  He  was  then  able  to  organize  only 
four  companies,  each  having  less  than  fifty  men,  for 
the  expedition,  (he  had  175  men  all  told)  ;  but  w^ith 
unsurpassed  pluck  he  launched  forth  his  boats  on  June 
24,  1778,  just  as  an  eclipse  of  the  sun  was  coming  on, 
and  in  the  growing  darkness  they  shot  the  falls  and 
proceeded  on  their  w-ay.  The  captains  of  the  four 
companies  were  John  Montgomery,  Joseph  Bowman, 
Leonard  Helm  and  William  Harrod. 

The  river  was  followed  until  nine  miles  below  the 
mouth  of  the  Tennessee,  when  Clark  turned  into  the 
mouth  of  the  Massac  Creek,  that  enters  the  Ohio  about 
200  yards  above  the  "steep,  low  hill  of  iron-stained 
gravel  and  clay"  on  which  old  Fort  Massac  was  built 
by  the  French  after  they  were  driven  from  Fort  Du- 
quesne,  (Pittsburg)  by  the  Quaker  emissary,  Fred- 
erick Post.  Fort  Massac  was  in  ruins  and  without 
garrison  when  Clark  arrived,  and  he  rested  for  one 
night  beside  the  creek.  Here  he  was  joined  by  a  party 
of  American  hunters  who,  in  ranging  over  the  plains 
of  Illinois,  had  been  to  Kaskaskia.     They  told  Clark 

269 


A  History  of  the 

that  Rocheblave,  a  Frenchman  in  the  British  service, 
had  kept  the  fort  at  Kaskaskia  in  good  repair,  and  the 
mihtia  well  drilled  and  ready  for  a  fight.  The  Missis- 
sippi was  carefully  watched,  and  that  the  French  in- 
habitants hated  and  feared  the  Americans,  as  the  Span- 
ish-Americans hated  the  buccaneers — a  story  that 
pleased  Clark  right  well. 

Sending  out  scouts  to  capture  any  stragglers  from 
the  enemy's  camp,  and  to  kill  game  for  the  subsistence 
of  his  men,  (for  no  pack  train  encumbered  his  move- 
ments), Clark  started  overland  for  Kaskaskia,  guided 
by  one  of  the  hunters.  After  winding  his  way  through 
fifty  miles  of  forest  and  crossing  the  grove-marked 
plains  beyond,  he  reached  the  bank  of  Kaskaskia  River, 
three  miles  from  the  fort,  on  the  evening  of  July  4, 
1778.  Here  the  command  hid  in  the  forest  on  the  low 
grounds  until  night  came,  when  boats  enough  were 
procured  at  a  river-side  farm  to  ferry  them  across  the 
stream. 

Then  dividing  the  force,  a  half  of  the  men  were 
sent  to  form  a  cordon  around  the  village,  so  that  no  one 
could  escape,  while  Clark  led  the  remainder  silently 
to  a  covered  gateway  on  the  river  side  of  the  fort. 
Fortunately,  no  sentinel  was  on  guard,  and  unopposed, 
Clark  led  his  force  within  the  walls. 

The  officials  of  the  post  were  giving  a  ball  to  the 
inhabitants  of  the  place,  that  night.  A  great  hall  was 
lighted  by  many  candles,  and  with  torches,  here  and 
there,  and  within  were  gathered  a  merry  host  of  Cre- 
oles, dancing  with  a  glee  that  was  delightful. 

Walking  to  the  door  of  the  hall,  Clark  stopped  and 
"leaned  silently  with  folded  arms  against  the  doorpost, 

270 


Mississippi   Valley. 

looking  at  the  dancers.  An  Indian  lying  on  the  floor 
of  the  entry,  gazed  intently  on  the  stranger's  face,  as 
the  Hght  from  the  torches  within  flickered  across  it, 
and  suddenly  sprang  to  his  feet,  uttering  the  unearthly 
war  whoop. 

"Instantly  the  dancing  ceased ;  the  women  screamed 
while  the  men  ran  towards  the  door.  But  Clark,  stand- 
ing unmoved,  and  with  unchanged  face,  grimly  bade 
them  continue  their  dancing,  but  to  remember  that  they 
now  danced  under  Virginia  and  not  Great  Britain!" 
(Roosevelt.) 

And  thereafter  they  never  did  dance  under  Great 
Britain,  in  that  town.  For  the  Americans  secured  the 
garrison,  including  the  commander,  as  Clark  gazed  on 
the  dancers,  and  the  flag  that  replaced  the  British  was 
never  lowered.  It  is  plain  that  Clark  understood  the 
French  character  well  when  he  appeared  alone  at  the 
door  of  the  ballroom.  He  could  have  done  nothing  else 
that  would  have  impressed  them  so  deeply. 

All  night  the  backwoods  Americans  patrolled  the 
dark  streets  of  the  town  in  ominous  silence,  while  the 
French  shivered  with  fear  in  their  unlighted  homes  to 
which  they  were  sent  as  soon  as  Clark  saw  that  they 
would  dance  no  more.  The  tales  of  bloody  deeds  done 
by  merciless  backwoodsmen  from  Kentucky,  of  which 
they  had  heard  enough,  were  remembered  in  detail. 
When  morning  came,  the  French  inhabitants  were  in 
a  state  of  mind  whereupon  a  deputation,  headed  by  the 
priest,  (Father  Pierre  Gibault),  waited  on  Clark  to 
beg  for  their  lives.  They  said  they  were  "willing  to  be 
slaves  to  save  their  families." 

At  that  Clark,  who  had  cultivated  their  fears  by 
271 


A  History  of  the 

night,  told  the  trembHng  suppHants  that  the  Americans 
had  come  to  set  them  free,  not  to  slaughter  or  enslave 
them;  and  that  any  who  wished  to  take  the  oath  of 
allegiance  to  the  United  States  would  thereby  become 
American  citizens,  with  all  American  privileges,  while 
all  who  preferred  to  leave  might  depart  in  peace. 

Hardly  crediting  his  own  senses,  Father  Gibault 
asked  whether  the  Catholic  Church  could  be  opened. 
Clark  replied  that  the  American  government  had  noth- 
ing whatever  to  do  with  any  religion,  save  only  to 
protect  every  man  in  his  right  to  worship  God  accord- 
ing to  the  dictates  of  his  own  conscience. 

The  conquest  of  Kaskaskia  was  completed  by  that 
assurance.  The  deputation  returned  "with  noisy  joy" 
to  the  church,  where  they  sang  Te  Demn,  and  the  peo- 
ple made  haste  to  swear  allegiance  to  the  new  flag. 
Only  Rocheblave  remained  obdurate.  He  replied  with 
insulting  language  to  an  invitation  to  dine  with  Clark, 
and  his  slaves  were  sold  for  £500,  (which  was  dis- 
tributed as  prize  money  among  the  soldiers),  after 
which  he  was  sent  to  Virginia  as  a  prisoner.  When 
there  he  broke  his  parole  and  escaped.  Cahokia,  the 
nearby  French  settlement,  was  conquered,  on  the  same 
terms,  by  merely  sending  an  account  of  what  had  been 
done  at  Kaskaskia,  and  Father  Gibault  volunteered  to 
go  to  Vincennes  and  bring  it  under  the  flag,  a  mis- 
sion in  which  he  succeeded  perfectly. 

At  once  Clark  enlisted  a  considerable  body  of 
French  youth  as  militia  and  spent  much  time  in  drilling 
them  and  his  own  men;  but  a  new  danger  impended 
in  the  arrival  of  a  host  of  red  men  who  came  to  Caho- 
kia to  learn  what  had  happened,  and  Clark  met  them 

272 


Mississippi   Valley. 

there.  They  were  all  from  the  Great  Lakes — Chippe- 
was,  Pottawattomies,  Sacs  and  Foxes — and  there  was 
an  insolence  in  the  bearing-  of  a  part  of  them,  (known 
as  the  Meadow  Indians),  that  might  well  have  alarmed 
any  commander  having  no  more  rifles  behind  him  than 
Clark  had. 

But  Clark  was  exactly  fitted  to  handle  these  wild 
men  without  bloodshed.  The  first  open  aggression 
came  on  the  third  night,  when  a  party  forced  them- 
selves into  the  house  where  Clark  had  his  headquarters. 
But  Clark  had  suspected  treachery,  and  had  a  force 
in  waiting  that  promptly  captured  and  ironed  the  red 
men. 

The  warriors  begged  for  release,  saying  they 
were  merely  trying  to  see  if  the  French  were  really 
friendly  to  the  Americans,  but  Clark  listened  with 
indifference,  even  when  some  chief  men  of  other  tribes 
came  to  beg  favor  for  the  prisoners.  To  make  a  still 
deeper  impression,  Clark  "assembled  a  number  of  Gen- 
tlemen and  Ladies,  and  danced  nearly  the  whole  night." 

The  next  day,  after  some  negotiations  with  the 
other  Indians  about  the  future  relations  of  the  various 
tribes  to  the  "Long  Knives,"  the  fettered  Indians  were 
brought  before  the  Council.  There  Clark  told  them 
that  everybody  thought  they  ought  to  die  for  making 
an  attack  upon  him  during  the  sacred  time  of  council, 
and  that  he  had  fully  determined  to  kill  them,  but  he 
had  learned  they  were  old  women  and  not  men,  and  for 
their  treachery  were  considered  too  mean  to  be  killed 
by  a  Big  Knife.  He  had  therefore  decided  to  take 
away  their  masculine  garments,  clothe  them  in  the 
appropriate  garb  of  squaws,  and  then,  since  women 

2/3 


A  History  of  the 

could  not  hunt,  he  would  give  them  a  plentiful  supply 
of  food  and  send  them  home. 

The  punishment  thus  awarded  them  was  worse 
than  death  to  these  Indians,  and  when  the  irons  were 
taken  from  them  a  chief  came  forward  with  a  belt  of 
wampum  and  a  pipe  of  peace;  but  Clark  refused  to 
listen  to  his  words,  saying  that  he  would  not  treat  with 
squaws.  This  impressed  the  guilty  Indians  so  deeply 
that  after  a  few  minutes  consultation,  it  was  decided 
to  offer  two  of  their  number  as  a  sacrifice  to  clear  away 
the  disgrace  they  had  brought  upon  themselves.  Two 
youths  volunteered  to  die  for  the  rest,  and  walking 
to  the  center  of  the  council,  they  sat  down,  covered 
their  heads  with  their  blankets,  and  silently  awaited 
the  stroke  of  the  tomahawk. 

The  triumph  of  the  Long  Knives  was  now  com- 
pleted. Going  to  these  youths  Clark  raised  them  up, 
and  told  them  he  was  glad  to  find  that  two  men  and 
chiefs  were  to  be  found  among  those  he  had  supposed 
to  be  squaws  only.  He  was  therefore  able  to  treat 
with  the  others  through  them. 

A  peace  that  probably  bound  all  who  were  present 
at  the  council,  (though,  as  usual,  not  their  fellow 
tribesmen),  was  concluded,  and  the  name  of  Clark 
attained  a  fame  through  the  Northwest  that  was  better 
for  the  preservation  of  peace  than  the  presence  of  many 
soldiers. 

The  most  trying  part  of  Clark's  work,  however, 
was  yet  to  be  done.  Vincennes  had  surrendered  at  the 
request  of  Father  Gibault,  and  Captain  Leonard  Helm 
had  been  sent  there  to  take  command.  The  news  of  all 
the  changes  wrought  in  the  Illinois  country  by  Clark's 

274 


COL.    GEORGE    CROGHAN. 


Son  of  Maj.  William  Croghan  of  the  Revolution.     His  mother  a 

sister  of  Gen.  George  Rogers  Clark.     Received  a  medal 

from  Congress  for  distinguished  services. 


Mississippi    Valley. 

invasion  reached  Detroit  while  Colonel  Hamilton  was 
meditating  an  expedition  to  the  forks  of  the  Ohio,  and 
he  at  once  turned  his  energies  to  Vincennes  instead. 

Colonel  Hamilton  himself  took  command  of  a  force 
with  which,  on  October  y,  1778,  he  left  Detroit,  It 
included  thirty-six  British  regulars  under  two  lieuten- 
ants, forty-five  French  volunteers  under  Captain  La- 
motte,  and  militiamen  that  brought  his  white  force 
up  to  179.  The  Indians  at  first  numbered  sixty-nine, 
but  they  were  afterwards  increased  to  500. 

Crossing  Lake  Erie  to  the  Maumee  River,  Hamil- 
ton poled  up  that  stream  past  the  site  of  the  present 
city  of  Toledo  to  the  carrying  place,  nine  miles  long, 
that  crossed  the  height  of  land  where  Fort  Wayne, 
Indiana,  now  stands.  The  portages  ended  in  what  the 
French  called  a  flae — or  swampy  lake,  made  by  a  beaver 
dam  across  Le  Petite  Riviere — a  tributary  of  the  Wa- 
bash that  had  little  water  in  it  below  the  beaver  dam. 
The  Indians  and  whites  alike  had  preserved  the 
beavers  living  in  this  flae.  By  opening  the  dam  a  suffi- 
cient amount  of  water  was  released  to  carry  Hamilton's 
flotilla  down  to  the  deep  water  of  the  Wabash;  and 
when  the  expedition  was  gone  the  beavers  promptly 
repaired  the  dam,  and  filled  the  lake  again,  ready  for 
use  of  the  next  expedition. 

At  this  time  Capt.  Helm,  commanding  at  Vincennes, 
had  but  one  American  in  the  fort,  a  private  soldier 
named  Moses  Henry.  He  had  to  depend  on  the  French 
militia  entirely.  He  had  a  scouting  party  of  the  French 
up  the  Wabash,  at  the  time,  but  Hamilton  captured  the 
party,  and  on  December  17,  the  overwhelming  British 
force  entered  Vincennes.     The  poor  little  Frenchmen 

275 


A  History  of  the 

promptly  went  over  to  the  invaders,  and  Helm  was 
obliged  to  surrender.  Nevertheless  he  did  it  in  good 
frontier  style.  Placing  ''a  loaded  cannon  at  the  open 
gate"  of  the  fort,  as  Hamilton  advanced,  Capt.  Helm 
stood  by  the  gun  with  a  lighted  match,  and"  com- 
manded the  British  to  halt.  Hamilton  demanded  the 
surrender  of  the  garrison.  Helm  refused  and  asked 
for  terms.  Hamilton  replied  that  they  should  have  the 
honors  of  war,  and  the  terms  were  accepted.  The 
comical  aspect  of  the  garrison,  consisting  of  one  officer 
and  one  soldier,  marching  out  of  the  fort  between  lines 
of  disgusted  Indians  on  one  side  and  British  soldiers 
on  the  other,  is  happily  illustrated  in  Gay's  History  of 
the  United  States,  (Winsor). 

When  Hamilton  reached  Vincennes,  Clark  had 
about  lOO  Americans  with  whom  to  hold  the  Illinois 
country  against  this  hair-buying  invader,  who 
now  had  a  force  of  more  than  600.  Had 
Hamilton  been  half  as  courageous  and  resource- 
ful as  Clark,  the  British  flag  w^ould  have  been 
flying  from  every  post  in  the  region  very 
quickly.  But  the  fact  is  Hamilton  had  been  obliged 
to  drive  his  boats  through  ice,  during  his  descent  of 
the  Wabash,  and  the  winter  rains  and  winds  of  the 
regfion  had  seemed  to  search  the  marrow  of  his  bones. 
A  seat  by  an  open  fireplace  was  much  more  to  his 
liking  that  an  expedition  to  Kaskaskia.  Kaskaskia 
could  wait  till  the  orioles  came  to  weave  hanging  nests 
on  the  tips  of  the  white  elm  branches.  He  sent  most 
of  his  Indians  to  their  wigwams,  and  most  of  his  militia 
to  Detroit,  without  even  trying  to  do  so  much  as  cut 
off  Clark's  communications  with  Kentucky.     He  re- 

276 


Mississippi    Valley. 

tained  for  a  garrison  thirty-four  British  regulars,  forty 
Detroit  Frenchmen,  and  twelve  white  associates  of  the 
Indians — men  fit  to  send  on  expeditions  for  scalping 
women  and  children.  In  fact,  while  Hamilton  neg- 
lected to  place  a  force  where  Clark's  communication 
with  the  American  settlements  would  be  cut  off,  he 
repeatedly  sent  out  bands  of  Indians  in  charge  of  these 
white  men  to  raid,  with  fire  and  scalping  knife,  such 
lone  home-makers  as  could  be  found  at  work  in  the 
wilderness,  unsuspicious  of  danger.  In  nothing  that 
Col.  Hamilton  did  during  the  American  Revolution  is 
his  character  more  accurately  portrayed  than  in  his 
preferring  scalp-hunting  raids  to  a  war-like  attack  on 
Clark's  line  of  communications. 

And  in  nothing  that  Clark  ever  did  was  his  charac- 
ter as  an  American  frontiersman  set  forth  better  than 
in  his  work  after  Hamilton  came  to  Vincennes.  For 
while  Hamilton  sat  down  to  plan  the  uprising  of 
every  Indian  tribe  from  the  Great  Lakes  to  the  Gulf, 
Clark  planned  to  attack  Hamilton. 

Clark  saw  that  he  was  in  great  danger  at  Kaskaskia, 
and  to  defend  his  post  he  determined  to  attack  the  in- 
vaders zvhile  they  were  yet  at  Vincennes.  He  did  this 
in  spite  of  his  reasonable  belief  that  the  British  force 
far  outnumbered  his,  and  in  spite  of  a  perilous  lack 
of  ammunition. 

A  big  row  boat  was  built  and  armed  with  two 
four-pounder  cannon  and  two  one-pounders — swivels 
— and  manned  with  forty  men.  She  was  named  the 
Willing.  Her  he  sent  around  by  the  Ohio  to  serve 
as  a  ferry  and  a  gunboat  in  the  attack.  Then  he  called 
for  volunteers  among  the  Frenchmen,  and  the  boldness 

277 


A  History  of  the 

of  the  plan  so  roused  the  enthusiasm  of  the  French 
girls  that  scarcely  a  French  young  man  dared  refuse 
to  enlist,  and  on  February  7,  1779,  he  marched  from 
Kaskaskia  at  the  head  of  170  men. 

In  the  annals  of  American  warfare  there  are  no 
accounts  of  such  another  expedition  as  this.  The 
weather  had  turned  warm,  the  snow  and  ice  had  melted, 
and  nearly  the  whole  route,  240  miles  long,  was 
flooded. 

Clark  himself  might  face  a  journey  like  that  with 
composure.  With  his  iron  will  its  hardships  might 
be  turned  to  pleasure,  but  the  appalling  task  was  to 
make  the  hardships  seem  pleasures  to  his  men,  of  whom 
many  had  been  induced  to  enlist  by  a  passing  excite- 
ment. Yet  here  and  elsewhere  the  man  was  equal  to 
the  occasion.  He  led  the  way.  He  kept  many  hunters 
out  to  bring  in  game,  and  he  had  the  game  served  in 
banquets.  At  night  they  kindled  huge  fires  and  feasted 
and  danced  and  sang  songs. 

At  the  end  of  the  week  they  reached  the  Little 
Wabash  and  found  the  country  flooded  three  feet  deep 
far  beyond  the  channel.  But  a  boat  was  made  by  hollow- 
ing out  a  big  log,  and  some  men  were  ferried  across 
to  a  place  beyond  the  channel  where  they  could  be  land- 
ed in  water  not  more  than  waist  deep.  There  they  built 
a  scaffold  on  which  the  baggage  was  loaded  as  the  pi- 
rogue brought  it  over,  and  finally  the  pack  horses  came 
swimming  across.  Three  days  was  consumed  in  cross- 
ing. The  horses  were  repacked  as  they  stood  belly  deep 
beside  the  scaffold,  and  then  away  the  command  all 
splashed  through  water  and  mud,  waist  high  most  of 
the  time.     They  had  found  nothing  worse  than  mud 

278 


Mississippi   Valley. 

for  beds,  hitherto,  but  on  February  17,  when  Embar- 
ras  river  was  reached,  they  had  to  huddle  on  the  top 
of  a  low  hillside  that  did  not  afford  room  for  them  to 
make  camp. 

To  increase  their  misery,  the  game  had  abandoned 
the  overflowed  land,  and  moreover  they  were  so  near 
Vincennes  that  the  firing  of  a  gun  was  likely  to  give 
warning  to  the  British. 

In  fact  at  sunrise  on  the  i8th,  they  heard  the  morn- 
ing gun  in  Vincennes.  The  men  began  making  pi- 
rogues, that  day,  and  for  two  days  they  worked  on 
the  low  ridge  of  ground.  But  in  the  meantime  they 
had  no  food,  and  the  spirits  of  the  French  volunteers 
sank  until  they  begged  Clark  to  return.  However,  be- 
fore the  night  of  the  20th,  five  Frenchmen  from  Vin- 
cennes were  captured,  and  they  gave  the  cheering  news 
that  no  alarm  had  been  raised  in  the  town.  The  same 
day,  a  hunter,  taking  chances,  killed  a  deer  that  gave 
every  body  a  bit  of  meat,  (the  last  food  they  had  on 
the  march),  and  in  the  morning  the  force  was  ferried 
across  the  river,  leaving  the  horses  behind. 

Having  landed  on  a  low  mound  they  set  forward, 
(Clark  leading),  and  marched  for  three  miles  through 
water  that  was  up  to  their  chins,  part  of  the  time, 
while  a  drummer  boy  "did  good  service  by  making 
the  men  laugh  with  his  pranks  and  his  jokes."  Then 
they  camped  on  a  low  ridge  for  the  night — a  most 
wretched  night;  though  a  worse  was  to  come. 

The  next  morning  there  was  work  for  the  boats, 
for  the  men  were  giving  out  under  their  prolonged 
hardships.  The  exhausted  were  put  in  the  boats  and 
then  Clark,  having  painted  his  face  Indian   fashion, 

279 


A  History  of  the 

gave  the  war  whoop  and  led  the  way  once  more,  while 
some  of  the  bolder  men  began  to  sing  a  favorite  song 
to  cheer  the  others. 

But  neither  war  whoops  nor  songs  could  strengthen 
the  famished  men,  and  when  at  night  they  came  to  a 
ridge  six  miles  from  Vincennes  many  were  so  weak  that 
they  fell  to  the  ground. 

To  add  to  the  misery  of  the  starving  host,  the 
weather  turned  cold  and  ice  formed  a  half  inch  thick 
over  all  the  overflowed  meadows  around  them. 

Strange  to  say,  however,  no  man  died,  and  when 
daylight  came  they  marched  on  once  more.  A  prairie 
four  miles  wide  that  was  now  an  ice-covered  lake, 
waist  deep,  lay  before  them,  but  the  strong  broke  the 
ice  for  the  others,  and  the  boats  were  paddled  to  and 
fro  swiftly,  to  pick  up  those  who  fell  by  the  way.  A 
guard  of  twenty-five  men,  with  orders  to  put  any  one 
to  death  who  might  try  to  desert,  brought  up  the  rear. 
And  so  they  struggled  on  until  an  island  was  reached 
in  the  midst  of  a  forest  two  miles  from  Vincennes.  On 
the  way  across,  a  canoe  which  some  squaws  were  pad- 
dling toward  the  town,  was  taken,  and  in  it  they  found 
a  quarter  of  a  buffalo,  some  buffalo  fat,  and  some  corn 
— enough  to  make  a  good  soup  for  all. 

This  swallowed,  the  forces  overhauled  their  rifles 
and  what  with  the  sup  of  broth,  and  the  prospect  of  a 
fight,  the  little  band  became  as  enthusiastic,  once  more, 
as  it  had  been  at  the  start.  Some  scouts  sent  out 
brought  in  a  youth  from  Vincennes,  who  said  that  200 
Indians  had  just  arrived;  the  British  force  was  now 
very  much  larger  than  that  of  Clark.  But  instead  of 
growing  disheartened,  Clark  became  the  bolder.     He 

280 


Mississippi   Valley. 

had  hoped,  thereto  fore,  to  surprise  the  garrison,  but  now 
he  determined  not  only  to  approach  openly,  but  to  re- 
lease this  prisoner  with  a  letter  to  the  people  an- 
nouncing his  coming.  The  friends  of  the  Americans 
were  told  to  remain  in  their  houses,  while  others  were 
urged  to  go  into  the  fort  with  the  "hair-buyer  General,'* 
and  "fight  like  men." 

Resting  his  men  by  their  fires  till  sundown,  Clark 
marched  from  the  forest  into  a  prairie  in  which  were  a 
number  of  low  hills  and  ridges.  The  prairie  was  with- 
in  plain  view  of  the  settlement,  but  by  waiting  until 
night  was  at  hand,  Clark  concealed  his  force.  Ham- 
ilton had  seen  the  camp  fires  of  the  previous  night,  and 
he  had  sent  out  a  scouting  party,  but  the  country  was 
impassable  to  such  men  as  they  were,  and  they  reported 
that  it  was  impassable  for  everybody.  Hamilton  did 
not  so  much  as  know  that  the  Americans  were  at  hand 
when  Clark  marched  from  the  woods. 

But  in  the  meantime  the  confident  words  of  the  let- 
ter sent  to  the  French  inhabitants  had  turned  them  to 
support  the  Americans,  while  the  letter  and  extraordin- 
ary boldness  of  Clark's  raid  had  turned  the  hearts  of 
the  Indians  to  water,  and  they  fled;  save  only  a  few 
who  determined  to  join  Clark. 

At  7  o'clock  on  the  night  of  March  23,  1779,  Clark 
entered  Vincennes  and  was  welcomed  by  the  Creoles, 
who  first  of  all  gave  him  a  much  needed  supply  of 
powder  and  lead.  Fifty  men  were  immediately  posted 
as  guards,  and  then  the  remainder  approached  the  fort 
and  opened  fire. 

Clark  in  his  memoirs  says  that  knowing  Capt. 
Helm's  habits  well,  and  knowing,  too,  the  building  in 

281 


A  History  of  the 

which  Helm  as  a  prisoner  resided,  the  attacking  force 
was  ordered  to  shoot  into  the  stick  and  mud  chimney 
of  that  house  in  such  fashion  as  to  knock  a  shower  of 
dirt  and  soot  down  the  chimney.  The  men  did  this 
with  glee,  and  the  result  was  that  the  tumbling  dirt 
fell  into  and  spoiled  a  brew  of  fine  toddy  which  Capt. 
Helm  was  preparing  as  usual  for  the  evening.  This 
story  seems  incredible  and  "childish"  to  one  modern 
writer  of  repute,  but  the  truth  is,  it  was  just  what  the 
frontiersmen  would  have  done  under  the  circumstances. 
I  have  known  the  woodsmen  of  the  Maumee  swamps 
to  do  just  such  tricks  in  the  days  before  the  civil  war. 
Horse  play  during  a  siege  may  be  childish  but  it  is  com- 
mon enough,  and  not  ivithout  good  effects  on  the  men. 

As  soon  as  daylight  permitted,  the  fire  of  the  back- 
woodsmen was  directed  at  the  loop  holes.  There  were 
several  small  cannon  and  swivels  in  the  upper  stories 
of  the  block  houses  on  the  corners  of  the  forts — enough 
to  knock  the  village  to  splinters,  in  fact — but  the  Brit- 
ish could  not  serve  them.  The  British  regulars  had 
courage  enough,  but  the  volunteers  weakened  as  they 
saw  man  after  man  shot  dead  in  trying  to  serve  the 
guns.  Here,  as  usual,  the  ability  to  shoot  straight  was 
on  the  American  side,  and  was  the  chief  factor  in  the 
fight. 

To  Clark's  demand  for  surrender  Hamilton  re- 
plied early  in  the  morning  by  requesting  a  truce  of  three 
days.  Clark,  of  course,  refused  this,  but  he  took  ad- 
vantage of  the  interval  made  by  the  request  to  give  his 
men  an  ample  meal — the  first  they  had  eaten  in  six 
days. 

In  the  afternoon  finding  that  he  was  losing  men 
282 


Mississippi   Valley. 

steadily,  while  inflicting  no  apparent  damage  on  the 
Americans,  Hamilton  sent  word  that  he  would  arrange 
for  capitulation,  and  then  he  came  out  and  met  Clark 
in  the  church  to  discuss  the  matter.  He  had  terms  for 
surrender  already  written,  but  Clark  refused  them,  and 
in  the  course  of  the  discussion  accused  Hamilton  of 
raiding  the  settlements  in  order  to  kill  women  and 
children,  and  said  that  one  reason  for  rejecting  the  of- 
fered terms  was  to  enable  the  American  frontiersmen 
to  take  the  fort  by  storm,  and  lawfully  avenge  the  in- 
fernal work  of  the  British  partisans.  To  this  charge 
Hamilton  said  he  was  not  to  blame  for  carrying  out 
the  orders  of  his  superiors — a  statement  that  was  whol- 
ly untrue,  since  he  had  urged  his  superiors  to  adopt 
the  raiding  policy. 

Curiously  enough  while  the  two  officers  talked, 
a  party  of  Indians  who  had  been  on  a  successful  raid 
against  the  home-makers,  came  boldly  into  town,  know- 
ing nothing  of  the  presence  of  the  Americans,  and  they 
waved  aloft  the  trophies  of  their  success  as  they  ap- 
proached. The  frontiersmen  at  once  fell  upon  them, 
killed  two,  wounded  three  and  took  six  alive.  The 
six  were  then  led  to  a  spot  on  the  bank  of  the  river 
where  they  were  in  plain  view  of  the  garrison,  and 
were  there  tomahawked  and  thrown  into  the  stream. 
Although  this  was  done  whde  Hamilton  and  Clark 
were  in  the  church,  Hamilton  afterwards  when  safe  at 
home,  deliberately  wrote  that  Clark  wielded  the  toma- 
hawk that  killed  these  marauders. 

Eventually,  Clark  agreed  to  accept  the  surrender  of 
the  fort  on  condition  that  the  garrison  should  become 
prisoners    of    war.      Then    seventy-nine    white    men 

283 


A  History  of  the 

marched  out.  Of  these  Clark  was  obliged  to  parole 
all  but  Hamilton  and  twenty-seven  others,  who  were 
sent  to  Virginia.  In  Virginia,  Hamilton  was  kept  in 
close  confinement,  for  a  long  time,  because  of  his 
"eager  zest,"  as  Roosevelt  calls  it,  in  the  "unmention- 
able atrocities"  of  the  Indians  and  Tories  whom  he  sent 
against  the  home  makers.  But,  at  the  request  of  Wash- 
ington, who  was  ever  anxious  that  even  such  prisoners 
as  Hamilton  should  be  treated  mildly,  he  was  released 
and  exchanged. 

The  British  power  had  been  forever  overthrown 
in  the  Illinois  country.  A  force  that  was  coming  from 
Detroit  with  large  quantities  of  supplies  and  Indian 
goods,  was  captured,  and  the  plunder  shared  among 
the  men  of  the  expedition.  A  plan  for  uniting  the 
northern  and  southern  Indians  in  an  effort  to  annihilate 
the  Americans  in  the  Ohio  watershed,  on  which  Ham- 
ilton had  pondered  all  winter,  was  ended. 

Clark  returned  to  the  Falls  of  the  Ohio,  and  Vir- 
ginia eventually  gave  him  and  his  men  150,000  acres 
of  land  on  the  north  side  of  the  falls.  The  Virginia 
legislature  also  thanked  him  and  sent  him  a  sword. 

Work  that  gave  to  the  United  States  a  territory 
in  every  way  great  enough  for  a  nation  in  itself  was 
accomplished,  although  it  had  not  been  carried  out  as 
fully  as  Clark  planned  it.  For  Clark  purposed  going 
to  Detroit,  and  would  have  succeeded  in  doing  so  had 
men  and  means  been  given  him.  One  feature,  however, 
of  what  he  did  do  remains  to  be  described,  and  it  has 
been  left  for  the  end  of  the  chapter  in  order  to  empha- 
size the  difference  betwen  the  heroes  and  the  politi- 
cians of  the  American  Revolution. 

284 


COL.    FRANCIS    VIGO. 

A  firm  friend  of  Gen   George  Rogers  Clark,  and  who  loaned  Clark 

;6i2,ooo  for  the  conduct  of  his  notable  expedition. 


Mississippi   Valley. 

The  £  1 ,200  with  which  George  Rogers  Clark 
started  for  the  IlHnois  country  was  necessarily  ex- 
hausted before  he  had  arrived.  In  his  extremity,  he 
borrowed  tens  of  thousands  of  dollars  in  coin,  at  one 
time  and  another,  of  Francois  Vigo,  a  St.  Louis  trader. 
A  part  of  this  was  repaid  to  Vigo  by  drafts  on  Oliver 
Pollock,  the  patriotic  American  merchant  of  New 
Orleans,  but  "when  Vigo  died  at  Terre  Haute,  in  1836, 
neglected  and  childless,  something  like  $20,000  (coin) 
which  he  had  paid  to  Clark  remained  unsettled."  His 
heirs  strove  without  success  to  get  this  money,  until 
1872,  when  Congress  referred  the  matter  to  the  Court 
of  Claims,  and  the  Court  decided  in  favor  of  the  heirs. 
Then  Congress  appealed  the  case,  though  in  vain,  and 
in  1876  the  country  paid  $50,000  to  the  speculators 
who  had  bought  out  the  heirs,  (Winsor).  And  Oliver 
Pollock,  whose  patriotism  brought  him  to  poverty,  was 
treated  in  the  same  shameful  manner. 

Let  the  people — the  pessimists  who  think  that  our 
legislators  in  "the  old  days"  were  models  of  honor  and 
virtue — consider  well  this  further  fact.  In  spite  of  the 
magnificent  service  he  rendered  his  country,  Clark 
was  unable  to  obtain  a  commission  in  the  Continental 
Army.  Congress  refused  to  grant  him  one.  But 
James  Wilkinson,  the  infamous  traitor,  having  the  skill 
to  handle  the  politicians,  became  the  head  of  the  Ameri- 
can army. 


285 


GEORGE    WASHINGTON. 

This  portrait  is  by  Geoffroy,  and  published  in  Paris 
Washington  was  then  56  years  of  age. 


XVI 


AS  THE  WAR  DRAGGED  ON. 


Aid  From  the  Spaniards  at  New  Orleans — When  the 
Succcessor  of  Hamilton  at  Detroit  "Expressly  Di- 
rected" the  Savages  to  Make  War  on  the  Frontier — 
Robertson's  Settlement  on  the  Site  of  Nashville — 
There  Were  250  Men  in  the  Company,  and  229  of 
Them  Died  by  Violence  Within  Twelve  Years — 
Origin  of  a  Small-pox  Epidemic  Among  the  Indians 
— The  Pluck  of  Nancy  Gomer. 

An  important  feature  of  the  Mississippi  Valley 
work  during  the  war  of  the  Revolution  was  displayed 
at  New  Orleans.  On  January  i,  1777,  Don  Bernado 
de  Galvez  became  Governor  of  Louisiana.  Though 
but  twenty-one  years  old,  he  was  a  youth  of  unusual 
ability  and  of  most  remarkable  energy. 

As  his  first  important  official  act,  Galvez  seized,  at 
287 


A  History  of  the 

New  Orleans,  eleven  British  ships,  all  richly  laden, 
and  confiscated  them.  The  ships  had  been  allowed  to 
come  there  by  the  previous  governor,  (Unzaga),  but 
their  presence  was  contrary  to  law. 

Then  when  Oliver  Pollock  was  appointed  agent 
of  the  American  Congress,  a  little  later,  he  was  per- 
mitted to  buy  and  ship  war  materials  up  the  river,  and 
Galvez  eventually  loaned  him  $6,000  to  forward  the 
business. 

Among  the  shipments  made  by  Pollock  may  be 
mentioned,  as  a  sample  of  all,  9,000  pounds  of  powder 
in  150  kegs  which,  under  the  charge  of  Lieutenant 
Linn,  was  conveyed  up  the  river,  and  delivered  to  Col. 
William  Crawford,  at  Wheeling,  May  2,  1777.  One 
gets  an  idea  of  what  delays  river  commerce  suffered, 
in  those  days,  from  the  statement  that  it  took  Linn 
more  than  seven  months  to  make  this  trip.  It  was  after 
this  perilous  journey  up  the  river  that  Linn  went  to 
Harrodsburg  where,  as  Clark's  diary  noted,  he  was 
married  with  "great  merriment." 

In  consequence  of  the  up-river  trade  of  the  Ameri- 
cans the  British  in  Florida  strengthened  their  forces 
along  the  Bayou  Manchac,  and  the  Mississippi,  above 
Spanish  Territory.  The  sloop  of  war  Sylph,  with  a 
crew  of  150  men  was  stationed  at  Manchac,  while  fifty 
rangers  were  camped  on  shore.  The  garrison  at  Nat- 
chez was  maintained  by  200  men.  These,  by  the  aid 
of  British  spies  in  New  Orleans,  made  the  transport 
of  supplies  up  the  river  so  perilous  that  Pollock  urged 
Congress  to  send  a  force  to  sweep  the  river  to  New 
Orleans.  Congress  did  not  do  it,  and  much  trouble  fol- 
lowed the  failure  to  accept  Pollock's  advice;  for  Galvez 

288 


Mississippi   Valley. 

went  up  the  river,  after  learning  that  Spain  had  de- 
clared war  against  England,  (May  3,  1779),  and  on 
September  21,  1779,  captured  Natchez.  The  capture 
of  Mobile  and  Pensacola  followed,  and  thus  all  the 
Florida  of  that  day  passed  under  Spanish  control. 
What  would  have  happened  had  Florida  remained 
under  British  control  is  a  matter  of  curious  speculation. 

As  the  time  passed  in  the  Ohio  valley,  it  became 
apparent  that  George  Rogers  Clark  should  have  been 
enabled  to  go  to  Detroit.  Arent  Schuyler  de  Peyster 
succeeded  Hamilton,  at  that  post,  and  he  sicked  on  the 
red  blood  hounds,  as  Hamilton  had  done. 

In  an  official  report  to  Lord  George  Germaine, 
(quoted  by  Roosevelt),  he  said:  "It  would  be  endless 
and  difficult  to  enumerate  to  your  Lordship  the  parties 
that  are  continually  employed  upon  the  back  settle- 
ments. From  the  Illinois  country  to  the  Frontier  of 
New  York  there  is  a  continual  succession.  The  per- 
petual terror  and  losses  of  the  inhabitants  will,  I  hope, 
operate  powerfully  in  our  favor." 

In  connection  with  this,  Roosevelt  says,  on  the  au- 
thority of  the  original  documents  now  in  Canada : 
"The  savages  were  expressly  directed  to  make  war  on 
non-combatants." 

The  British  were  trying  to  "disgust"  the  inhabi- 
tants of  the  frontier  precisely  as  the  French  had  tried 
to  "disgust"  them  during  the  years  immediately  fol- 
lowing the  defeat  of  Braddock. 

Books  have  been  filled  with  the  tales  of  horrors  and 
heroisms  that  grew  out  of  these  raids.  One  of  the 
most  successful  was  made  in  June,  1780,  by  Capt. 
Henry  Bird,  who,  on  the  22d,  with  600  Indians  and  a 

289 


A  History  of  the 

few  white  scalpers,  captured  Riddle's  and  Martin's 
Stations,  on  the  south  fork  of  the  Licking,  In  raising- 
men  for  a  return  raid  into  Ohio,  George  Rogers  Clark 
arbitrarily  closed  the  land  office  at  Harrodsburg,  and 
drafted  four-fifths  of  the  men  who  were  there  to  file 
claims.  In  this  way  he  secured  970  men,  and  going 
to  the  Indian  villages  of  Chillicothe  and  Piqua,  (Pick- 
away Towns),  he  burned  them  and  brought  back  sev- 
enteen scalps.  The  work  had  no  real  influence  on  the 
conflict,  but  it  seems  worth  mention  because  it  por- 
trays the  dash  of  Clark. 

In  the  meantime,  however,  the  people  on  the  head 
waters  of  the  Tennessee  had  done  notable  work  by  es- 
tablishing a  settlement  on  the  site  of  Nashville.  One 
Spencer  was  the  first  permanent  settler  there.  He  went 
there  early  in  1778  with  a  party  of  skin  hunters,  and 
when  the  party  broke  up  he  and  one  companion  re- 
mained. Eventually  the  companion  decided  to  go  and 
Spencer  broke  his  own  knife  in  two  in  order  to  give  a 
blade  to  the  companion  who  had  none.  To  share  a 
knife  blade  was  the  final  frontier  test  of  friendship. 
During  the  ensuing  winter  Spencer  lived  in  a  hollow 
sycamore  tree. 

In  1779  James  Robertson,  of  Watauga,  found  the 
deep  woods  calling  him  irresistibly,  and  gathering  a 
company  that  included  Col.  John  Donelson,  whose 
daughter  Rachael  became  the  wife  of  Andrew  Jackson, 
he  went  to  where  Spencer  was  living  and  established  a 
settlement. 

The  party  started  in  thirty  boats  down  the  Holston 
on  December  22,  1779,  but  the  frosts,  (that  was  the 
"hard  winter")  held  them  at  Cloud  Creek  until  Febru- 

290 


Mississippi   Valley. 

ary  2y,  1780.  The  story  of  the  voyage  is  remarkable. 
On  a  flat  boat  containing  twenty-eight  people  a  number 
became  sick  with  the  small-pox.  The  boat  followed  at 
a  considerable  distance  behind  the  flotilla.  The  Indians 
who  watched  the  expedition  from  the  bank  saw  this 
defenceless  boat  far  in  the  rear  and  made  haste  to  go 
out  with  canoes  to  attack  it.  It  was  an  easy  victory,  for 
they  soon  killed  or  captured  all  on  board,  but  for 
months  thereafter  the  small-pox  raged  among  the 
Creeks  and  Cherokees,  carrying  off  multitudes. 

At  another  place  the  Indians  stood  on  the  bluffs 
and  fired  on  the  boats.  When  the  crew  of  one  boat  fled 
below  deck  a  young  woman  named  Nancy  Corner  took 
the  helm  and  steered  the  boat  to  safety.  She  did  not 
flinch,  even  when  a  bullet  pierced  her  thigh,  and  it  was 
not  till  her  mother  saw  blood  soaking  through  her 
skirts  that  anyone  knew  she  had  been  hit. 

The  party  named  their  settlement  Nashborough 
after  Covernor  A.  Nash  of  North  Carolina.  "Three 
hundred  miles  of  forest  separated  it  from  all  neighbor- 
ly succor,"  but  on  May  i,  1780,  the  people  gathered  and 
agreed  on  a  form  of  self  government,  much  like  that 
created  by  the  Watauga  people  in  earlier  days.  The 
compact  was  signed  by  250  men,  and  it  is  noted  that 
in  twelve  years  from  that  time  no  more  than  twenty 
of  the  250  remained  alive,  and  all  but  one  had  died  by 
violence.  They  were  picked  off  by  the  Indians  here  and 
there,  as  they  hunted  for  game,  or  worked  in  the 
fields,  or  went  to  spring  or  stream  for  water.  They 
fell  in  skirmishes  where  parties  dashed  from  the  fort 
to  wreak  vengeance  on  the  red  marauders.  The  whites 
held  th€  land,  but  they  paid  a  frightful  price  for  it. 

291 


WILLIAM    PENN. 

From  a  painting  from  life,  in  the  possession  of  tlie  Penn.  Hist.  Soc, 
made  in  1666. 


XVII 

GNADENHUTTEN. 

The  Most  Significant  Fact  in  the  History  of  the  Red 
Americans  Is,  that  a  Number  of  Delawares  Who 
Were  as  Cruel  and  Bloodthirsty  as  Any  Others, 
Were  by  Patient  Efiforts  Converted  into  Christians 
— Driven  from  Pennsylvania  by  White  Christians 
and  Received  by  Red  Heathens  in  Ohio — Slaught- 
ered as  They  Sang  Their  Christian  Hymns — The 
Blackest  Crime  Known  to  American  History — Fron- 
tier Desperadoes  Inspired  by  the  Thought  of  Indians 
Who  Would  Not  Fight. 

Because  they  were  willing  to  obey  the  Divine  com- 
mand, "Seek  peace  and  pursue  it,"  the  Delaware  In- 
dians, who  had  been  converted  by  the  United  Brethren 
preachers,  (and  have  since  been  known  in  history  as 
the  Moravian  Indians),  left  their  homes  among  the 

293 


A  History  of  the 

whites  in  western  Pennsylvania,  in  1772,  and  re- 
moved to  the  wilderness  on  the  Muskingum  river.  A 
settlement  called  Schoenbrunn  (Beautiful  Spring) 
was  established  early  in  the  planting  season.  In  the 
course  of  the  year  another  was  made  nearly  ten  miles 
away  from  Schoenbrunn  and  named  Gnadenhutten, 
while  a  third  called  Salem  was  built  near  Gnadenhut- 
ten.    Gnadenhutten  means  "Tents  of  Grace." 

The  Christian  white  people  had  refused  to  allow 
the  Christian  Indians  to  live  in  peace  in  their  original 
homes  in  Pennsylvania.  This  is  an  important  state- 
ment. There  is  no  record  that  either  Christians,  or 
members  of  churches  called  Christians,  made  any  open 
attack  on  the  Moravian  Indians,  but  the  white  Christ- 
ians, (excepting  the  Quakers,  of  course),  made  no 
effort  to  protect  their  red  brethren  in  Christ  from  the 
assaults  of  other  people,  and  they  are  therefore  to  be 
held  guilty  of  the  crime  that  drove  the  red  Christians 
into  the  wilderness. 

But  when  the  Christian  Indians  reached  the  Mus- 
kingum, the  heathen  Indians  bade  them  welcome  and 
gave  them  peace  until  after  the  Christian  white  people 
became  involved  in  the  War  of  the  Revolution.  These 
Indians,  who  believed  the  Christian  doctrines  as 
taught  by  the  United  Brethren,  having  peace,  built 
excellent  houses  and  good  churches.  They  planted 
sufficient  ground  and  raised  good  crops.  They  pros- 
pered. They  made  rapid  progress  in  the  simpler  arts 
of  civilization. 

It  is  important  to  keep  in  mind  that  these  Mora- 
vians were  able-bodied  Delawares,  and  that  before 
they  were  converted  they  had  all  the  superstitions,  pro- 

294 


Mississippi    Valley. 

pensities,  instincts  and  ambitions  of  other  wild,  heathen 
Delawares.  They  had  had  as  much  pleasure  in  raid- 
ing their  enemies  and  torturing  prisoners  at  the  stake 
as  any  other  Delawares  had. 

Here,  then,  is  the  most  significant  fact  in  the  his- 
tory of  red  Americans.  By  the  patient,  persistent  ef- 
forts of  a  few  sincere  and  energetic  teachers  those  wild 
and  cruel  hunters  had  been  changed  into  peace-loving, 
stump-grubbing  farmers.  The  perfection  of  this 
change  of  ambitions  and  manners  of  life  is  written  on 
the  pages  of  history  in  words  of  fire  to  proclaim  for- 
ever that  the  infinite  pains  and  sorrows  of  the  Indian 
wars  and  raids  were  all  due  to  the  greed  and  the  neg- 
lect of  the  white  race.  IMost  short-sighted  was  the 
greed,  most  woeful  the  neglect. 

"Money  talks"  much  more  effectively  than  either 
sentiment  or  religion  appeals.  Therefore  let  it  be  re- 
membered that  the  losses  inflicted  by  any  one  of  scores 
of  hundreds  of  Indian  raids  amounted  to  more  than  the 
whole  expense  of  converting  all  these  Indians  who  are 
now  known  as  Moravians. 

The  facts  about  these  Indians  were  well  known  on 
the  frontier,  and  in  Lord  Dunmore's  war  they  were 
treated  with  kindly  consideration  by  both  parties  to  the 
fighting.  But  as  the  war  of  the  Revolution  grew  hot,, 
trouble  came  to  the  "Tents  of  Grace."  The  British 
officials  at  Detroit,  in  their  eagerness  to  incite  all  In- 
dians to  make  war  on  the  American  frontier,  strove 
first  to  bribe  these  Christian  Indians  to  take  up  the 
hatchet.  Failing  in  that,  they  sicked  on  the  heathen  In- 
dians to  destroy  the  Moravian  settlements,  and  scatter 
the  inhabitants,  knowing  that  a  Christian,  when  hun- 

295 


A  History  of  the 

gry  and  naked,  might  be  more  easily  persuaded  to 
devilish  deeds  than  when  in  a  home  of  peace  and  plenty. 
White  men  who  called  themselves  Christians,  and  who 
in  time  of  peace  would  have  given  money  cheerfully 
in  aid  of  missionary  enterprise,  were  made  so  brutal 
by  the  passions  of  war  that  they  deliberately  plotted 
to  compel  by  force  the  Christian  Indians  into  the  per- 
petration of  hellish  deeds. 

At  the  behest  of  the  Detroit  authorities  the  savage 
Indians,  when  raiding  the  American  settlements,  passed 
by  the  way  of  Gnadenhutten — the  Tents  of  Grace — 
and  compelled  the  peace  lovers  to  entertain  and  supply 
them  with  food.  And  on  returning  from  raids,  care 
was  taken  to  lay  the  trail  through  Gnadenhutten  in 
order  to  make  the  suffering  Americans  believe  that  the 
peace  lovers  had   done  the  mischief. 

But  the  whites  were  not  deceived.  The  red  Christ- 
ians and  their  white  teachers  soon  came  to  feel  a  strong 
sympathy  for  the  raided  Americans,  and  a  stronger 
dislike  for  the  raiding  British  and  Indians.  It  was 
impossible  to  avoid  supplying  the  raiders  with  food, 
without  a  fight,  and  fight  these  red  Christians  would 
not.  But  a  time  came  when  their  humanity  bade  them 
to  warn  the  Americans  that  raids  impended,  and  thus 
many  a  woman  and  many  a  child  escaped  to  safety  who 
would  have  been  slaughtered  by  the  raiders. 

And  this  humane  work  was  done  at  great  peril, 
for  the  raiders  were  sure  to  learn  about  it,  and  sooner 
or  later,  the  humane  messengers  were  sure  to  be  taken 
and  slaughtered.  In  fact,  the  savage  Delawares  came 
to  look  upon  the  Christians  as  traitors  to  the  tribe,  even 
when  the  Christians  refused  to  take  up  the  tomahawk. 

296 


Mississippi   Valley. 

How  they  felt  when  they  learned  that  the  Christians 
were  warning  the  whites  whenever  raids  impended 
may  easily  be  imagined. 

As  the  dangers  of  these  red  Christians  became 
known  among  the- Americans,  efforts  were  made  by  the 
regular  army  officers  to  induce  them  to  remove  within 
the  American  lines.  Col.  John  Gibson,  (he  who  took 
down  the  words  of  the  famous  chief  Logan),  comman- 
ded at  Pittsburg,  and  was  particularly  earnest  in  per- 
suading them.    The  Wyandotte  chief  Half  King  said : 

"Two  powerful,  angry  and  merciless  gods  stand 
ready,  opening  their  jaws  wide  against  each  other;  you 
are  sitting  down  between  both,  and  are  thus  in  danger 
of  being  devoured  by  the  teeth  of  either  one  or  the 
other,  or  both.  *  *  *  Consider  your  young  people,  your 
wives  and  your  children  *  *  *  for  here  they  must 
perish.  I  therefore  take  you  by  the  hand,  lift  you  up, 
and  place  you  in  or  near  my  dwelling,  where  you  will 
be  safe  and  dwell  in  peace.  *  *  *  Take  also  your 
teachers  with  you,  and  worship  God  in  the  place  to 
which  I  shall  lead  you,  as  you  have  been  accustomed 
to  do." 

Both  Col.  Gibson  and  Half  King  were  sincerely  de- 
sirous of  protecting  these  Indians.  The  red  heathen, 
Half  King,  was  thus  kind  to  them  though  he  knew  they 
had  previously  warned  the  whites  when  red  raiders 
were  coming.  Gibson  was  urgent  because  he  knew 
that  the  frontier  desperadoes  were  beginning  to  look 
toward  Gnadenhutten.  The  fact  that  the  Christian  In- 
dians would  not  fight  was  inspiring  to  the  desperadoes. 
At  Gnadenhutten  blood  might  be  shed  and  scalps  taken 
without  danger. 

297 


A  History  of  the 

But  in  spite  of  warning,  and  in  spite  of  a  certain 
knowledge  of  impending  danger,  these  Christians  re- 
fused to  leave  their  homes.  Their  determination,  was 
in  the  mind  of  one  honored  historian,  due  to  their 
*'blind  fatuity." 

This  is  a  matter  of  the  utmost  importance.  Look 
at  it  without  prejudice.  It  was  not  "blind  fatuity." 
It  was  not  "blind  folly,"  that  kept  them  in  their  homes. 
It  was  a  sublime  faith  in  the  Christ  zvhom  they  wor- 
shipped that  held  them  there  in  spite  of  danger.  There 
are  no  stories  known  to  books  so  touching  as  those 
that  describe  the  faith  of  wild  men,  red  or  black.  The 
missionaries  and  their  wards  believed  that  God  would 
protect  them.  It  is  a  fact  worth  remembering,  es- 
pecially by  those  who,  once  a  week,  with  bobbing  heads, 
mumble  some  sort  of  creed,  and  then  live,  the  devil 
knows  how,  the  rest  of  the  time. 

Early  in  September,  1781,  a  party  of  British  and 
Indians,  numbering  140,  led  by  Simon  Girty,  came 
to  these  settlements  and  carried  away  all  the  Christ- 
ians to  Sandusky.  A  miserable  winter  followed,  and 
food  became  so  scarce  that  many  parties  of  Christ- 
ians went  back  to  Gnadenhutten  to  gather  corn  that 
had  been  left  standing  in  the  fields. 

In  some  way  the  white  men  of  the  western  coun- 
ties of  Pennsylvania  and  Virginia  learned  that  these 
parties  of  corn  gatherers  tarried  about  their  fields  for 
days  at  a  stretch,  before  returning  to  famine-stricken 
Sandusky.  At  Gnadenhutten  were  Indian  men,  women 
and  children  who  would  not  fight,  even  if  arms  were 
given  to  them.  The  opportunity  for  the  cowards  and 
assassins   of   the    frontier   had   come.      Indian   scalps 

298 


Mississippi   Valley. 

could  now  be  obtained  without  danger  to  the  scalpers. 
To  get  the  scalps  of  Indians  who  would  not  fight,  nine- 
ty frontiersmen  gathered  at  Mingo  Bottom,  (two  and' 
a  half  miles  below  the  modern  Steubenville,  Ohio), 
to  organize  for  the  raid.  It  was  not  an  association 
of  frontier  outlaws  and  desperadoes  only;  men  of  the 
first  social  rank  at  the  frontier  were  among  the  number. 
They  met  by  night  to  avoid  publicity,  for  they  feared 
that  the  humane  Col.  John  Gibson,  commanding  at 
Pittsburg,  would  send  a  squad  of  regular  army  sol- 
diers to  stop  them.  To  their  thirst  for  innocent  blood 
they  added  at  the  very  inception  of  the  movement,  de- 
liberate treachery,  for  they  sent  word  to  those  whites 
who  might  oppose  the  raid  that  the  expedition  was 
going  to  bring  the  Moravians  to  Pittsburg  for  safety. 
It  is  important  to  keep  this  treachery  in  mind. 

Col.  David  Williamson  of  the  Pennsylvania  militia 
eagerly  took  charge  of  the  raiders.  If  there  were 
grades  of  depravity  in  this  gang,  Williamson  was  of  the 
lowest  grade.  Doddridge,  who  was  Williamson's  per- 
sonal friend,  says  that  naturally  Williamson  was  "not 
cruel,"  and  that  to  "murder  a  prisoner"  was  against 
his  natural  feelings;  but  he  was  guilty  of  "too  easy 
compliance  with  popular  prejudice." 

The  fact  of  the  matter  is  he  was  a  politician  of  the 
meanest  class,  and  to  curry  favor  among  the  most  de- 
graded voters  in  the  region, he  smothered  his  humanity, 
and  took  the  lead  of  these  raiders.  It  is  not  a  little 
shocking  to  find  writers  who  suppose  they  help  Wil- 
liamson's case  by  showing  that  he  was  naturally  hu- 
mane. 

Col.  John  Gibson,  who  was  commanding  officer 
299 


A  History  of  the 

at  Pittsburg,  learned  that  an  expedition  was  going. 
He  sent  orders,  imploring  messages  as  well,  but  was 
unable  to  restrain  the  gang,  and  he  therefore  sent  a 
warning  to  the  IMoravians.  The  Aloravians,  however, 
had  faith  in  their  God,  and  they  therefore  remained 
harvesting  their  corn,  for  the  benefit  of  their  hungry 
brethren  at  Sandusky. 

Williamson  and  his  followers  started  for  Gnaden- 
hutten  on  the  third  of  March,  1782.  A  Christian  In- 
dian whom  they  found  in  the  woods  a  mile  from  the 
settlement,  (a  half  breed,  the  son  of  a  white  Christian 
named  Schebosch),  they  chopped  to  pieces  while  he 
begged  for  life.  But  when  they  reached  Gnadenhutten 
they  went  among  the  harvesters  in  the  most  friendly 
manner,  and  expressed  regret  and  pity  "on  account  of 
the  mischief  done  by  the  British  and  hostile  savages." 
"They  likewise  spoke  freely"  of  the  Moravian  char- 
acter, and  expressed  kindly  appreciation  of  the  fact 
that  they  had  "never  taken  the  least  share  in  the  war." 

Finally  the  white  men  said  they  had  come  to  con- 
duct the  Moravians  to  Pittsburg,  to  get  them  out  of 
reach  of  the  British  and  the  savages.  Feeling  grateful 
for  the  apparent  kindness  of  these  white  men  the  In- 
dians delivered  up  such  arms  and  goods  as  they  had, 
that  the  whites  might  care  for  them,  and  then  went 
to  the  woods  and  brought  packages  of  things  that  they 
had  concealed  there. 

Meantime  the  whites  sent  a  party  over  to  the  nearby 
Christian  settlement  called  Salem,  where  other  Mora- 
vians were  found  and  enticed  to  Gnadenhutten.  On  the 
trail,  this  party  of  whites  "feigned  great  piety,"  and 
discussed  Christian  doctrine  with  apparent  sincerity. 

300 


MONUMENT  TO  THE  INDIANS  MURDERED  AT  GNADENHUTTEN. 


Mississippi   Valley. 

Having  gathered  all  the  red  Christians  within  reach, 
together  at  Gnadenhutten,  and  having  deprived  them 
of  every  weapon  down  to  their  pocket  knives,  the 
whites  suddenly  fell  upon  them  with  thongs,  and  bound 
them  all. 

The  white  men  then  gathered  in  council  to  deter- 
mine how  to  kill  the  Indians.  Eighteen  of  the  ninety 
were  now  sick  of  the  part  they  had  taken  in  the  affair, 
and  after  protesting  against  the  killing  of  any  of  the 
Christians,  left  for  Pittsburg,  taking  one  Indian  boy 
with  them.  The  other  white  men  gave  the  Indians 
until  the  next  day  to  prepare  for  death. 

The  Indians  passed  the  night  in  prayer,  in  singing 
hymns  the  missionaries  had  taught  them,  and,  in  spite 
of  their  doom,  they  praised  God  for  His  loving  kind- 
ness and  blessings. 

When  morning  came  they  were  all — men,  women 
and  children,  to  the  number  of  ninety-six — bound  to- 
gether by  their  hands,  two  and  two.  A  woman  called 
Christina  fell  on  her  knees  before  Colonel  Williamson 
and  begged  for  her  life,  but  the  Colonel,  with  his  eyes 
on  the  voters  around  him,  told  her  he  could  do  nothing 
for  her. 

When  bound,  the  men  were  driven  into  one  house, 
and  the  women  and  children,  who  numbered  thirty- 
four,  were  driven  into  another.  Singing  and  praying 
aloud  all  marched  to  their  doom.  And  when  they  were 
within  the  houses,  the  white  men  waiting  there,  toma- 
hawked and  scalped  them.  "The  voices  of  singing  and 
of  supplication  failing  one  by  one,  the  silence  that  fell 
upon  the  place"  at  last  told  when  the  slaughter  was 
ended. 

301 


A  History  of  the 

One  lad  of  fifteen  years  was  so  little  hurt  that  he 
managed  to  slip  his  bonds  and  drop  into  the  cellar, 
where  he  lay  concealed  while  the  blood  ran  down  be- 
tween the  floor  boards  in  streams.  Another  boy  sur- 
vived. He  was  struck  on  the  head  with  a  tomahawk, 
stunned  and  scalped,  but  he  lived  to  describe  the  hor- 
rors through  which  he  had  passed,  although  the  mob 
held  a  jubilee  and  set  fire  to  the  two  slaughter  houses 
before  they  left  for  home. 

The  blackest  and  most  disheartening  crime  known 
to  American  history  was  the  slaughter  of  the  inno- 
cents at  Gnadenhutten — the  Tents  of  Grace.  To  at- 
tempt to  palliate  or  extenuate  it  is  to  insult  the  intelli- 
gence of  the  reader  and  to  add  to  his  indignation. 

Yet  I  venture  to  note  that  these  Indians  were  not 
burned  alive.  It  was  reserved  for  degenerates  of  the 
end  of  the  Nineteenth  Century — members  of  the  white 
race — to  burn  at  the  stake  individuals  of  a  less-devel- 
oped people. 

This  is  not  to  express  a  lack  of  faith  in  the  devel- 
opment of  Christian  civilization,  but  to  point  out  that 
many  facts  indicate  a  progress  of  degeneracy  among 
the  few,  side  by  side  with  the  progress  of  enlightened 
humanity  among  the  many. 


302 


COL.   AARON    OGDEN. 


Aide  in  the  expedition  of  Gen.  John  Sullivan  against  the  Indians,  etc. 
Portrait  painted  and  engraved  by  A.  B.  Durand. 


XVIII 


FIGHTING  THAT  FOLLOWED  GNADENHUTTEN. 

A  Second  White  Raid  in  Search  of  Scalps  of  Indians 
Who  Would  Not  Fight,  and  the  Result— A  Need- 
less Retreat  that  Became  a  Panic — The  Whites  Who 
Remained  Calm  when  They  Heard  of  the  Slaughter 
of  the  Innocents  at  Gnadenhutten,  Felt  "a  Profound 
Sensation"  when  the  Story  of  Crawford's  Death 
Was  Told — But  only  Quakers  and  Moravians  so 
Much  as  Observed  that  Injustice  to  an  Inferior  Race 
Was  Unprofitable. 

A  peculiarly  disheartening  feature  of  the  Gnaden- 
hutten crime  is  the  fact  that  the  white  people  who  were 
too  humane  to  take  part  in  it  were  yet  unwilling  to 
punish  the  perpetrators,  or  even  to  ostracise  them. 
The  scalps  of  the  murdered  Christians  were  flaunted 
on  the  streets  of  Pittsburg.     The  officers  of  the  Con- 

303 


A  History  of  the 

tinental  army  and  some  few  other  leading  men,  did 
express  their  condemnation,  but  the  greater  part  of 
the  people  openly  applauded  the  act.  War  had  gener- 
ated a  species  of  murderous  insanity,  even  among  a 
people  naturally  humane,  while  the  naturally  vicious 
were  incited  to  emulation.  An  expedition  of  480  mil- 
itia men  from  Pennsylvania  and  Virginia  was  organ- 
ized to  go  to  Sandusky,  on  Lake  Erie,  then  the  tem- 
porary home  of  the  remaining  Christian  Delawares. 
The  fact  that  the  Christian  Delawares  were  to  be  raided 
was  enough  to  induce  many  of  the  Williamson  gang 
to  volunteer  for  this  expedition,  and  others  who  were 
emulous  of  the  Williamson  reputation,  joined  in. 

Mingo  Bottom,  two  and  a  half  miles  below  Steu- 
benville  of  the  present  day,  was  the  place  of  rendezvous, 
as  on  the  Gnadenhutten  expedition.  On  arrival  there, 
the  forces,  according  to  custom,  elected  their  com- 
mander. Col.  William  Crawford  and  Col.  David 
Williamson  were  the  candidates,  and  although  Craw- 
ford held  a  Continental  commission,  and  was  a  more 
capable  officer,  the  popularity  of  Williamson  was  so 
great  that  Crawford  won  by  five  votes  only.  William- 
son was,  therefore,  made  second  in  command.  Dr. 
John  Knight  was  the  surgeon,  and  Jonathan  Zane  one 
of  the  guides. 

Starting  on  May  25th,  1782,  the  command 
marched  through  the  (modern)  Ohio  counties  of 
Jefferson,  Harrison,  Tuscarawas,  Holmes,  Ashland, 
Richland  and  Crawford,  and  into  Wyandot  county, 
Ohio.  The  Sandusky  River  was  reached,  three  miles 
south  of  the  modern  Crestline,  on  June  2,  and  the  next 
day  camp  was  made  near  the  modern  Wyandot.     On 

304 


Mississippi   Valley. 

the  4th,  Upper  Sandusky  Old  Town,  an  Indian  village, 
was  found  deserted,  but  the  scouts  afterwards  dis- 
covered a  band  of  Indians. 

It  was  a  prairie  country,  with  groves  here  and 
there,  and  the  Indians  were  in  a  piece  of  timber  on 
rising  ground,  since  known  as  Battle  Island,  about 
three  and  a  half  miles  northeast  of  the  modern  Upper 
Sandusky.  Simon  Girty,  Matthew  Elliot  and  Alex- 
ander McKee,  the  renegades,  were  with  the  Indians 
(about  200  in  number),  the  chief  of  whom  was  Cap- 
tain Pipe,  a  noted  Delaware.  There  were  also  two 
companies  of  white  men  from  Detroit,  under  Captain 
William  Caldwell,  in  the  grove.  On  the  whole,  Craw- 
ford's force  was  much  (perhaps  150)  superior  in  num- 
ber. 

Though  composed,  in  good  part,  of  the  most 
wretched  material,  Crawford's  command  charged  on 
the  grove,  when  ordered,  and  the  Indians  fled.  But 
once  the  command  was  in  the  shelter  of  the  trees,  they 
sat  down.  It  was  a  time  for  most  earnest  pursuit  of 
the  enemy,  but  instead  of  taking  any  advantage  of 
the  gain  they  had  made,  these  worthless  vagabonds 
allowed  the  enemy  to  rally  and  draw  a  line  around 
the  sheltering  grove. 

During  that  night  and  all  day  on  the  5th,  the  In- 
dians fired  from  the  grass,  as  opportunity  offered,  and 
toward  night  of  the  5th,  they  were  reinforced  by  140 
Shawnees. 

At  sight  of  these  fresh  warriors,  the  hearts  of  the 
Pittsburg  mob  turned  to  water.  They  still  out-num- 
bered the  enemy,  but  fighting  armed  warriors  was  very 
different  from  tomahawking  bound  women  and  chil- 

305 


A  History  of  the 

dren,  and  at  9  o'clock  at  night,  on  the  5th,  Crawford 
formed  his  men  in  a  body,  and  began  a  retreat  that 
quickly  degenerated  into  a  panic.  Singly  and  in 
squads,  the  whites  scattered  over  the  prairie,  and  it  is 
likely  that  the  whole  mob  would  have  been  destroyed 
but  for  the  efforts  of  a  lieutenant  known  as  John  Rose^ 
but  who  was  really  Baron  de  Rosenthal,  of  Russia. 
He,  by  heroic  efforts  and  example,  rallied  300,  and 
keeping  them  in  order,  beat  off  the  enemy  and  escaped. 
Yet  even  so  they  would  not  have  escaped  but  for  the 
eagerness  of  the  Indians  in  pursuing  the  stragglers. 

Among  the  stragglers  who  very  nearly  escaped 
were  Col.  Crawford  and  Dr.  John  Knight.  Both  of 
them  were  captured  on  the  7th.  They  were  taken  to 
Upper  Sandusky  (the  Old  Town),  thence  to  a  Dela- 
ware town  on  the  Tymochtee,  and  at  4  o'clock  on  the 
afternoon  of  June  nth,  1782,  Crawford  was  tied  to 
a  stake  for  torture.  He  had  begged  Simon  Girty.whom 
he  well  knew,  to  save  him,  but  Girty  said  it  was  im- 
possible. He  also  implored  the  Delaware  chief,  Captain 
Pipe,  to  spare  his  life,  or  at  worst,  shoot  him.  To 
this,  Captain  Pipe  replied  that  if  Williamson  had  been 
taken  it  might  have  been  done,  but  the  Indians  were 
exasperated  by  the  slaughter  at  Gnadenhutten,  and 
nothing  could  now  prevent  his  death  by  torture. 

Crawford  was  naked.  His  hands  were  bound 
firmly  behind  his  back,  and  from  the  thongs  on  his 
wrist  a  stout  rope  led  to  the  foot  of  the  post — a  sap- 
ling, peeled  down.  This  rope  was  long  enough  to 
allow  him  to  walk  freely  around  the  post.  When  he 
was  secured,  the  Indians  fired  their  guns,  loaded  with 
powder  only,   against  him   till  his   skin   was   full   of 

306 


Mississippi   Valley. 

burned  powder  grains  from  his  feet  to  his  neck.  They 
punched  and  beat  him  with  blazing  faggots  from  a  fire 
that  was  some  distance  from  the  circle  around  which 
he  could  walk.  They  showered  red  coals  over  him 
until  at  every  step  his  feet  were  placed  upon  hot  em- 
bers. Finally  he  fell  to  the  ground,  where  he  was 
scalped,  and  then  hot  coals  were  piled  against  the  place 
from  which  his  scalp  had  been  removed.  This  drove 
him  to  his  feet  once  more,  but  after  circling  about  the 
post  again  he  fell  and  expired. 

He  had  been  under  torture  but  two  hours.  As 
compared  with  the  Iroquois,  who  often  tortured  their 
victims  through  three  days,  these  Delawares  were  mer- 
ciful. 

Dr.  John  Knight  was  a  witness  of  the  tragedy. 
When  it  was  ended  he  was  sent  in  charge  of  one  Indian 
toward  another  village,  to  be  burned,  as  they  told  him. 
But  the  fact  that  he  was  guarded  by  but  one  Indian, 
and  that  he  readily  escaped  from  his  guard,  makes 
credible  the  story  that  he  was  allowed  to  escape  in  order 
that  he  might  tell  how  the  red  men  had  avenged  the 
slaughter  of  Gnadenhutten. 

A  stone  monument  has  been  erected  on  the  east 
bank  of  the  Big  Tymochtee  creek,  near  Crawford, 
Wyandot  county,  Ohio,  by  the  Pioneer  Association  of 
the  county,  to  commemorate  the  death  of  Crawford. 

It  is  recorded  that  the  burning  of  Crawford  created 
"a  profound  sensation" — "it  excited  the  greatest  hor- 
ror"— throughout  the  country.  The  people  who  had 
condoned  the  merciless  slaughter  of  ninety-four  inno- 
cents at  Gnadenhutten  were  horrified  to  think  the  In- 
dians would   take  revenge  on  the  leader  of  an   ex- 

307 


A  History  of  the 

pedition  that  went  to  the  Sandusky  Plains  to  repeat 
the  work  done  at  Gnadenhutten. 

The  burning  of  Crawford  was,  however,  but  the 
beginning  of  the  revenge  taken  by  the  Indians.  John 
Slover,  one  of  the  guides,  was  also  captured  but  es- 
caped (he  rode  and  ran  naked  through  the  wilderness, 
with  no  food  but  berries  and  two  crawfish  to  Wheel- 
ing). He  was  present  at  several  councils  of  the  In- 
dians where  the  Gnadenhutten  massacre  was  discussed, 
and  heard  the  Indians  resolve  to  take  no  more  prisoners 
while  the  war  lasted. 

A  maddened  host  thereafter  swept  the  whole  fron- 
tier, and  parties  went  well  into  the  interior  of  Vir- 
ginia and  Pennsylvania,  passing  between  frontier  forti- 
fied posts  in  order  to  fall  with  greater  success  on  un- 
suspecting farmers. 

Of  these  raids  but  one  need  be  described — that  at 
Brayan's  Station,  standing  a  few  miles  northeast  of 
Lexington,  Ky.,  which  resulted  in  the  slaughter  at  Blue 
Licks.  In  July  the  British  gathered  a  body  of  Indians, 
and  rangers  numbering  more  than  a  thousand.  These 
under  Capt.  William  Caldwell,  who  had  opposed  Craw- 
ford at  Upper  Sandusky,  started  for  an  attack  on 
Wheeling,  Va.,  but  hearing  that  George  Rogers  Clark 
was  leading  a  command  into  the  Indian  country,  they 
hastily  returned  to  defend  their  homes.  They  learned, 
later,  that  the  report  was  false,  but  the  Indians,  for  the 
most  part,  were  disbanded.  A  party  of  about  300, 
however,  went  to  Kentucky,  and  arrived  at  Bryan's 
Station,  on  August  i6th,  1782.  It  appears,  however, 
that  some  scouts  reached  that  neighborhood  on  the 
1 5th,  and  were  discovered  by  the  white  lookouts. 

308 


3       „ 

O       — 


Mississippi    Valley. 

Foreseeing  from  the  actions  of  the  scouts  that  an 
attack  impended,  the  first  care  of  the  whites  was  to 
get  a  supply  of  water,  and  this  was  obtained  by  the 
women  and  girls,  who  went  to  the  spring,  laughing 
and  chatting,  as  usual,  although  they  were  within 
range  of  a  number  of  Indian  guns,  and  knew  it.  The 
Indians,  being  anxious  to  keep  their  presence  unknown 
in  order  to  surprise  the  fort,  later  on,  did  not  molest 
the  women. 

But  when  the  attack  was  made  early  on  the  i6th, 
it  failed  utterly.  The  Indians  tried  to  decoy  out  the 
garrison  by  sending  a  small  party  to  feign  an  attack 
and  retreat  on  one  side  while  the  main  body  prepared 
to  storm  the  other.  The  whites  pretended  to  fall  into 
the  trap,  and  sent  a  party  in  pursuit,  but  the  main 
body  of  the  garrison  gathered  where  the  real  storm 
impended,  and  repulsed  it  with  a  deadly  volley. 

A  rescuing  party  that  was  brought  by  messenger 
from  Lexington  was  repulsed  by  the  Indians,  but  when 
attempts  were  made  to  fire  the  station,  during  the  night 
of  the  1 6th,  they  failed,  and  during  the  next  forenoon 
the  Indians  withdrew,  "angry  and  sullen  at  their  dis- 
comfiture." 

In  the  meantime  the  settlers  from  Lexington,  and 
nearby  forts,  (Bryan's  was  the  frontier  settlement), 
had  been  gathering,  and,  182  in  number,  they  were 
soon  on  the  Indians'  trail.  The  leaders  saw  by  the 
tracks  that  the  Indians  outnumbered  them,  but  they 
followed  the  trail  as  far  as  the  Blue  Licks,  on  the  banks 
of  the  Licking  River. 

From  this  point  a  number  of  Indians  were  seen  on 
the  rocks,  on  the  further  bank,  and  the  settlers  gathered 

309 


A  History  of  the 

to  consider  what  they  should  do  next.  Boone,  the 
ablest  fighter  of  them  all,  advised  that  a  halt  be  made 
until  another  detachment,  coming  from  Login's  Sta- 
tion, as  they  knew,  should  arrive.  The  men  in  the  com- 
pany who  had  been  most  successful  in  fighting  Indians 
agreed  with  Boone,  but  Major  Hugh  McGarry,  a  blat- 
ant bully,  was  for  crossing  immediately.  McGarry 
had  been  with  a  successful  raid  that  George  Rogers 
Clark  had  led  to  the  Indian  towns,  the  previous  year, 
but  had  well-nigh  wrecked  it  by  an  insubordinate  dash 
from  the  main  command,  while  yet  it  was  on  the  Ohio. 
His  vanity  was  his  most  conspicuous  characteristic,  and 
to  display  his  physical  courage  he  spurred  his  horse 
into  the  river,  waved  his  hat  with  a  theatrical  flourish 
above  his  head,  and  "called  on  all  who  were  not  cow- 
ards to  follow  him." 

Of  course  the  others  "just  had  to"  follow  him. 
On  the  further  side  was  an  open  forest.  An  advance 
guard  of  twenty-five  was  thrown  out  ahead.  The  In- 
dians were  soon  seen,  and  galloping  forward  till  within 
sixty  yards  of  the  enemy,  the  settlers  dismounted. 

Boone,  in  command  of  the  left  wing,  opened  the 
fight,  and  steadily  drove  the  enemy  back.  But  the 
Kentuckians  were  outnumbered  so  greatly  that  in  a 
few  minutes  the  Indians  had  killed  nearly  all  the  ad- 
vance guard ;  and  then  they  enveloped  the  right  wing, 
which  was  crushed  in  on  the  center.  Col.  Trigg,  who 
commanded  the  right  wing,  was  killed,  and  a  little 
later.  Col.  Todd  was  mortally  wounded.  As  he  fell 
from  his  horse  with  the  blood  gushing  from  his  mouth, 
a  panic  seized  a  majority  of  the  settlers,  and  almost  to 
a  man  they  fled  back  to  the  river. 

310 


Mississippi   Valley. 

On  the  home  side  of  the  river,  some  of  the  men 
who  had  wished  to  wait  for  reinforcements,  made  a 
stand  under  the  lead  of  a  man  named  Netherland,  and, 
by  cool  fire,  so  covered  the  retreat,  that  the  Indians 
did  not  follow  up  their  victory,  as  they  might  have 
done. 

But  the  Kentuckians  had  already  suffered  fright- 
fully. Out  of  182  men  who  went  out  into  battle,  sev- 
enty were  killed  during  the  fight,  seven  were  taken 
prisoners,  and  twelve  who  escaped  were  badly  wound- 
ed. And  that,  too,  in  a  fight  lasting  about  five  minutes. 
Ot  the  seven  prisoners,  four  were  burned  at  the  stake 
to  avenge  Gnadenhutten — for  it  must  be  kept  in  mind 
that  this  raid  was  one  of  the  many  made  to  avenge 
Gnadenhutten.  One  other  was  condemned  to  torture, 
but  when  the  Indians  started  him  running  the  gauntlet, 
he  turned  on  the  nearest  Indian  and  threw  him  to  the 
ground.  Then  he  pitched  another  over  his  head, 
after  which  he  leaped  on  a  log,  flapped  his  hands  on 
his  sides,  and  crowed  like  a  rooster.  The  Indians 
roared  with  laughter,  and  a  chief  at  once  adopted  him 
as  a  son. 

The  enemy  lost  but  twelve  killed  and  fourteen 
wounded,  according  to  their  own  account,  in  the  entire 
raid.  Of  these,  they  said,  seven  were  killed  at  the  lick. 
It  is  reasonable  to  suppose  that  more  Indians  were 
killed  than  their  report  showed,  but  that  was  the  se- 
verest blow  the  Kentucky  frontier  got  in  all  its  history. 

And  yet  no  one,  save  the  unconsidered  Quakers 
and  Moravians  so  much  as  observed  the  fact  that  in- 
justice to  an  inferior  race  was  unprofitable  to  a  most 
frightful  degree. 

311 


CHARLES    CORXWALLIS.       (maRijUIS    CORNWALLIS). 
From  a  portrait  by  Copley. 


XIX 


THE   FRONTIERSMEN   AT   KING'S   MOUNTAIN. 

Ferguson  said  He  was  in  a  Place  from  which  all  the 
Rebels  outside  of  Hell"  could  not  drive  Him,  yet  an 
Inferior  Force  of  Patriots,  a  Respectable  Body  of 
Prime  Riflemen  from  the  Holston  in  the  Course  of  a 
few  Minutes  Captured  all  of  His  Force,  and  Killed 
and  Wounded  389  of  Them  in  Doing  So — When 
Clark's  Name  was  as  Good  as  a  Thousand  Men. 

Although  it  was  fought  to  the  eastward  of  the  Al- 
leghany divide,  the  battle  of  King's  Mountain  (Octo- 
ber 7th,  1780),  should  have  mention,  because  of  the 
part  taken  by  the  men  from  the  Holston  region,  and 
because  it  was  one  of  the  decisive  victories  of  the  war. 
Until  1778,  the  Southern  States  were  not  molested  by 
the  British  forces,  but  late  in  that  year,  Lieutenant 
Colonel  Archibald  Campbell  with  3,500  regulars  cap- 

313 


A  History  of  the 

tured  Savannah.  A  proclamation  outlawing  all  who 
would  not  take  up  arms  under  the  British  standard 
followed,  and  soon  Georgia  was  overrun  by  the  British 
forces. 

On  June  13th,  the  worthless  Gates  (one  of  a  dis- 
graceful list,  far  too  long,  of  American  officers  who 
have  obtained  position  by  political  influence),  secured 
the  command  of  the  Southern  Department,  and  was 
shamefully  defeated  by  Lord  Cornwallis  at  Camden 
on  August  1 6th,  1780.  But  British  success  reached 
flood  tide  at  Camden,  and  the  ebb  which  began  to  run 
at  King's  Mountain,  left  the  invaders  stranded  at 
Yorktown. 

Cornwallis,  while  yet  in  South  Carolina,  detached 
Major  Ferguson  "to  scout  the  highlands  (even  to  the 
divide),  and  enlist"  as  many  Tories  as  possible.  Fer- 
guson took  200  British  infantry  and  1,000  Tories, 
"whom  he  drilled  until"  they  were  "excellent  troops," 
by  the  British  standard  of  the  day,  though  they  were 
deficient  in  one  particular,  as  shall  appear. 

But,  very  unexpectedly,  instead  of  finding  Tories 
flocking  to  his  standard,  Ferguson  found  packs  of  Pa- 
triots— "dirty  mongrels,"  he  called  them — gathering  to 
drive  him  to  cover.  In  fact  the  "mongrels"  proved 
such  efficient  fighters  that  Ferguson's  thoroughbreds 
were  started  on  the  run,  and  they  did  not  stop  until, 
on  October  6,  1780,  they  were  kenneled  safely,  (as 
they  supposed),  on  top  of  King's  Mountain. 

"Well,  boys,  here  is  a  place  from  which  all  the 
rebels  outside  of  hell  cannot  drive  us,"  said  Ferguson, 
as  on  the  morning  of  the  7th  he  surveyed  his  position. 
And  the  facts  seemed  to  warrant  his  confidence. 
314 


Mississippi   Valley. 

He  was  on  a  knob  of  a  ridge  a  half  mile  long,  and 
1,700  feet  high  above  the  sea.  The  ridge  was  covered 
with  big  pines,  and  obstructed  with  huge  boulders. 
His  men,  now  1,125  J"  number,  had  been  trained  until 
they  would  obey  orders.  The  force  that  had  been 
chasing  him  was  composed  of  undisciplined  militia. 
And  although  Ferguson  did  not  know  it,  there  were 
not  1,000  of  these  militia  men.  On  the  face  of  these 
facts,  ignonimous  defeat  did  seem  to  await  the  Ameri- 
can force. 

But  there  was  one  factor  in  the  fight  on  which 
Ferguson  had  not  counted;  two  factors,  really,  re- 
mained unconsidered.  And  to  this  day,  in  spite  of  oft 
repeated  demonstrations  of  the  vital  importance  of  the 
matter,  the  first  factor  does  not  receive  the  considera- 
tion it  deserves. 

Ferguson  had  drilled  his  men  until  they  would 
obey  orders  under  all  circumstances, — a  most  important 
matter — but  he  had  overlooked  the  chief  end  of  soldiers. 
He  did  not  fully  realize  that  soldiers  are  enlisted  solely 
to  kill  other  soldiers  in  battle.  He  had  men  who  "could 
march  to  admiration,"  but  they  could  not  shoot.  They 
were  poor  marksmen. 

The  Americans,  to  a  man,  had  been  trained  to  see 
with  unwavering  eyes  through  the  sights  of  a  rifle, 
and  those  of  them  who,  under  Shelby,  Sevier  and  Col. 
William  Campbell,  had  come  from  the  backwoods, 
carried  the  Deckhard  rifle,  with  a  barrel  three  feet 
six  inches  long,  and  using  a  bullet  running  seventy 
to  the  pound — a  most  deadly  weapon.  Moreover, 
though  undisciplined  militia,  and  therefore  liable  to 
panic,  they  were  now  acting  on  the  offensive,  and  were 

315 


A  History  of  the 

angered  by  the  memory  of  the  outrages  that  had  been 
perpetrated  by  the  British  partisans.  Ferguson  had  not 
considered  the  anger  of  these  woodsmen.  He  had 
not  understood  the  value  of  marksmanship. 

At  3  o'clock  in  the  afternoon  of  October  7,  the 
Americans,  1,000  strong,  dismounted  around  the  foot 
of  the  mountain,  and  after  tying  their  horses  to  the 
trees,  looked  to  the  priming  of  their  rifles  and  prepared 
to  climb  three  sides  of  the  ridge.  The  north  end  was 
precipitous  and  was  left  unconsidered. 

Led  by  Campbell  and  Shelby  in  the  center,  the 
Americans  climbed  up  until  the  British  saw  them  and 
opened  fire,  when  they  deployed  behind  trees  and  began 
to  shoot  also — continuing  to  advance,  the  while,  from 
tree  to  tree,  and  rock  to  rock.  The  crack  of  the  Ameri- 
can rifle  was  soon  seen  to  speak  of  death  to  the  British,, 
and  Ferguson  ordered  a  charge  with  bayonets  fixed. 

The  Americans  fell  back  until  the  British  host  was 
well  down  the  mountain  side,  when  a  band  of  back- 
woodsmen under  Sevier  opened  fire  on  the  British 
right  flank. 

Instantly  the  well-disciplined  British  soldiers  turned 
on  Sevier's  men,  but  it  was  only  to  find  another  Ameri- 
can host  firing  on  them  from  the  rear,  while  the  men 
under  Shelby  and  Campbell  turned  on  them  instantly. 

The  British  opened  fire  in  return,  but  because  they 
could  not  shoot  well,  they  killed  Americans  only  by 
chance  and  accident.  And  seeing  that  the  British  fired 
wildly,  the  Americans  crept  nearer,  and  fired  as  if 
at  a  herd  of  buffalo.  Ferguson  came  riding  a  beauti- 
ful white  horse  along  the  crest  of  the  ridge,  and  with 
shouts  encouraged  his  men  to  withstand  the  Americans. 

316 


Mississippi   Valley. 

But  he  had  come  within  range  of  men  accustomed  to 
kilhng  deer  on  the  run.  He  was  shot  dead,  pierced, 
it  is- said,  by  no  less  than  six  bullets,  and  falling  to  the 
ground,  his  horse  raced  wildly  down  the  mountain. 

The  end  had  come,  the  battle,  had  been  raging 
only  a  few  minutes,  but,  brief  as  the  time  was,  389 
of  the  British  had  been  killed  or  wounded,  out  of  the 
1,125  ^^''^t  went  into  battle.  Twenty  escaped  and  the 
rest  surrendered.  The  American  loss  was  but  twenty- 
eight  killed,  and  sixty  wounded. 

The  victory  was  the  work  of  what  the  Kentuck- 
ians  called  "a  Respectably  Body  of  Prime  Riflemen," 
but  to  this  day  our  soldiers  are  drilled  by  the  hour  in 
marching,  where  a  minute  is  devoted  to  target  practice. 

The  battle  of  King's  Mountain  freed  the  Holston 
region  from  any  fear  of  Tory  invasion;  and  Yorktown 
followed  on  King's  Mountain.  But  it  did  not  free 
the  Holston  from  Indian  depredations.  The  Chero- 
kees  had  been  incited  by  the  British  agents  to  renewed 
activity,  while  the  British  overran  the  country  east 
of  the  Alleghanies. 

The  work  that  followed  was  thorough,  but  monot- 
onously like  that  of  other  attacks  on  Indian  settlements. 
The  white  men,  with  corn,  powder  and  lead  only  in 
their  pouches,  ranged  free  through  the  forests.  "A 
thousand  cabins  were  burned,  50,000  bushels  of  corn 
destroyed."  But  the  Indians  fled  before  the  whites, 
and  but  twenty-nine  red  men  were  killed  in  the  first 
raid,  and  thirty  in  the  second.  A  third  brought  in  a 
dozen  scalps.  But  in  the  meantime  so  many  red  women 
and  children  had  been  taken  prisoners  that  the  Chero- 
kees  sued  for  peace. 

3^7 


A  History  of  the 

It  was  in  1780,  (May  26),  that  a  party  of  1,500 
Indians  and  140  British  traders  made  an  attack  on 
St.  Louis.  They  were  sent  "out  by  Lt.  Gov.  Sinclair, 
of  MichiHmacinac,  and  led  by  a  Sioux  chief  named 
Wabasha.  The  affair  lasted  only  a  few  hours,  and 
no  assault  was  made  on"  the  fort.  A  few  stragglers 
were  killed  and  then  the  force  fled  back  to  the  north. 
Nothing  of  consequence  was  accomplished,  but  this 
assault  was  to  be  the  first  of  a  series  intended  to  cap- 
ture New  Orleans.  The  reason  for  the  sudden  flight  of 
the  Indians  is  found  in  the  fact  that  they  had  learned, 
during  the  day,  of  the  arrival  of  George  Rogers  Clark 
with  a  small  body  of  men.  The  name  of  Clark  was 
as  good  as  a  thousand  ordinary  men  well  armed. 


318 


GEN.    ISAAC    SHELBY. 

His  remarkable  career  cannot  be  epitomized  in  this  brief  space. 
This  portrait  is  by  Durand. 


XX 


•     FRONTIER  HOME  AND  CIVIL  LIFE  IN  WAR  TIME. 

A  Memorable  Picture  in  the  History  of  the  Mississippi 
was  the  Man  who  Walked  Across  the  Mountains 
Driving  a  "Flea-Bitten"  Grey  Horse  Loaded  with 
Books — It  was  a  Poor  Man's  Country,  for  No  Great- 
er Capital  was  Necessary  than  Enough  to  Buy  an 
Acre,  a  Hoe  and  a  Rifle — A  Consideration  of  Things 
that  Shocked  European  Travellers — One  of  Col. 
William  Campbell's  Busy  Sundays, 

Of  all  the  pictures  of  life  on  the  frontier  during 
the  war  of  the  Revolution,  none  pointed  the  way  of  the 
future  Republic  in  better  fashion  than  that  of  a  young 
man  who  came  from  Princeton,  New  Jersey,  and 
"walked  through  Maryland  and  Virginia,  driving  be- 
fore him  an  old  'flea-bitten'  grey  horse,  loaded  zvith  a 
sack  fidl  of  hooks."  Samuel  Doak  was  his  name,  and 
he  was  a  teacher  as  well  as  a  preacher.    Following  the 

319 


'A  History  of  the 

blazed  trails  through  the  forest-covered  mountains,  he 
came  at  last  to  Jonesboro,  and  there  settled,  and  in 
1777  built  a  Presbyterian  church.  Doak  believed  with 
his  congregation  that  the  red  men  were  heathen  who 
ought  to  be  driven  from  the  fair  land,  as  the  heathen 
were  driven  from  Canaan,  and  that  when  red  men  were 
killed,  their  souls  went  straight  to  the  eternal  torment 
to  which  they  had  been  ordained  from  all  eternity. 
Nevertheless  he  brought  to  the  wilderness  "a  sack  full 
of  books,"  among  which  was  one  containing  the  Sermon 
on  the  Mount;  and  at  worst  any  books  were  better 
than  no  books.  Moreover  he  built  a  log  school  house 
that  grew  into  Washington  College,  later  on.  There 
were  many  vagabonds  on  the  frontier — shiftless  hunter 
folks  with  no  ambition  beyond  a  full  stomach,  but  the 
dominant  portion  of  the  people  knew  well  the  value  of 
books.  That  is  a  matter  well  worth  consideration  in 
connection  with  the  further  fact  that,  as  the  frontier 
spread  across  the  continent,  school  houses  were  always 
to  be  found  in  the  battle  line,  until  a  time  came  when 
the  people  made  boast  that  the  first  brick  burned  in 
this  or  that  community  were  used  in  building  a  school 
house.  That  sack  full  of  books  on  a  flea-bitten  grey 
horse  with  Doak  afoot  in  order  that  the  horse  might 
carry  a  full  sack,  is  a  most  memorable  incident  in  the 
life  of  the  Mississippi  Valley. 

The  winter  of  1779-80  was  known  as  "the  hard 
winter,"  for  many  years  after  it  had  passed.  The 
whites  in  Kentucky  and  Tennessee  had  never  seen  such 
prolonged  cold  weather  or  such  a  depth  of  snow.  Cat- 
tle and  horses  perished  of  the  cold  and  starvation. 
The  game  became  lean.     Only  scanty  crops  of  corn 

320 


Mississippi    Valley. 

had  been  raised,  and  what  was  harvested  was  eaten 
before  spring  came.  A  fort  had  been  erected  during  the 
summer  of  1779  at  the  Falls,  (Louisville),  and  stores 
had  been  provided  for  the  garrison.  Some  corn  was 
held  there  by  the  merchants,  who  soon  raised  the  price 
to  $50  a  bushel,  and  eventually  to  $175,  in  Continental 
money,  which  was  worth  then,  and  at  that  place,  not 
far  from  twenty-five  cents  in  coin  per  dollar.  The 
lean  breast  of  turkeys  was  sliced  and  eaten  in  place  of 
bread  with  the  meals  of  broiled  and  roasted  venison, 
and  the  only  satisfactory  meals  known  throughout  the 
winter  were  eaten  when  some  lucky  hunter  found  a 
bear  in  its  den.    For  the  bears  were  always  fat. 

Following  the  hard  winter  of  1779-80,  the  in- 
flux of  population  was  extraordinary.  No  less  than 
"300  large  family  boats  arrived,  during  the  ensuing 
spring,  at  the  Falls,"  says  Floyd's  correspondence, 
quoted  by  Butler.  Many  other  people,  of  course,  came 
by  the  Wilderness  road,  through  Cumberland  Gap. 
One  estimate  says  that  more  than  4,000  came  in  1780. 

On  the  whole  the  influx  of  people  from  the  settled 
region  east  of  the  mountains  is  one  of  the  important 
facts  in  the  history  of  the  Great  Valley  during  the  Rev- 
olution. The  Indian  raids  drove  many  people  from  the 
frontier,  but  the  immigration  more  than  made  up  for 
the  losses  thus  sustained.  The  weaklings  who  returned 
filled  the  East  with  the  tales  of  the  Indian  raids,  and 
their  stories  could  scarcely  have  been  exaggerations 
of  the  facts,  simply  because  the  human  mind  could 
scarcely  imagine  more  dangerous  conditions,  in  such 
a  country,  than  those  actually  existing  there.  The 
life  of  no  white  person  was  safe  for  a  moment  when  be- 

^21 


A  History  of  the 

yond  a  fort's  walls.  The  home  seekers  who  came  in 
the  300  family  boats  knew  what  they  were  to  face  when 
they  left  the  Monongahela,  and  many  of  them  began 
their  experiences  with  red  warriors  while  yet  on  the 
river.  For  the  river  was  haunted  by  parties  of  hostile 
Indians  in  1780,  and  for  years  after.  It  was  a  year 
later  that  Colonel  Archibald  Lochry  and  his  command 
of  100  men  were  destroyed  by  Indians  while  coming 
down  the  river.     Nevertheless  immigration  continued. 

It  was  a  people  of  the  utmost  courage,  and  the 
dominant  portion  of  them  were  of  the  rarest  energy. 
A  few  slaves  were  with  the  emigrants,  but  it  was  dis- 
tinctively a  community  of  people  who  would  work. 
Owners  and  slaves  swung  the  axe  and  the  hoe  side  by 
side  in  the  forest  and  field.  It  was  a  condition  of 
affairs  that  could  not  last  long,  for  slave  owners  would 
necessarily  come,  at  last,  to  look  upon  physical  labor 
as  ignoble;  but  it  is  the  most  important  fact  in  the 
history  of  the  United  States  that  the  Mississippi  Val- 
ley has  been  prosperous  and  progressive  in  proportion 
to  the  ivay  the  dominant  people  in  it  have  been  willing 
to  work. 

We  have  in  these  early  days  of  the  Twentieth  Cen- 
tury adopted  a  new  Rank  (John  Paul  Jones  always 
spelled  rank  with  a  capital  R).  We  call  some  of  our 
great  men  Captains  of  Industry.  Carlyle  and  Ruskin 
suggested  such  a  Rank  long  ago,  and  we  have  acted 
on  the  suggestion.  Through  luck  and  longevity  a 
mediocre  man  may  lead  all  officers  in  army  or  navy. 
A  ninny  or  degenerate  may  come  to  the  Rank  of  cap- 
italist through  inheritance.  But  the  Rank  of  Captain 
of  Industry  is  the  proud  title  only  of  him  who  earns 

322 


Mississippi   Valley. 

it  by  honest  toil.  If  a  blight  fell  at  any  time  on  any 
part  of  the  Mississippi  Valley,  it  was  because  its 
dominant  people  came  to  look  upon  labor  as  something 
to  be  done  by  slaves. 

Imlay  has  told  how  men  with  little  capital  suc- 
ceeded in  those  early  days.  Men  with  an  axe,  a  hoe 
and  rifle  came  to  Kentucky  and  succeeded.  A  sufficient 
shelter  was  built  with  an  axe,  and  the  rifle  and  the 
forest  supplied  the  food  while  the  trees  were  chopped 
from  three  acres  of  land.  A  half  acre  was  planted 
with  garden  vegetables  and  the  remainder  in  corn. 
Because  much  time  had  to  be  given  to  hunting,  the 
first  crop  amounted  to  no  more  than  seventy  bushels  of 
corn,  but  half  that  was  enough  to  supply  the  settler 
having  a  family  of  three  with  bread  for  the  ensuing 
year.  The  remainder  found  a  ready  market,  though 
at  a  low  price,  while  the  skins  of  the  animals  killed 
formed  the  currency  of  the  country. 

When  the  second  season  came  the  clearing  was 
five  acres  large,  and  the  ensuing  crop  greater  in  pro- 
portion. By  this  time,  too,  the  industrious  man  would 
have  established  himself  among  his  neighbors  so  firmly 
that  a  cow  could  be  purchased  on  credit,  while  the  third 
year  saw  him  driving  at  least  one  horse  of  his  own, 
and  a  modest  fortune  was  at  hand. 

All  this  supposes  that  the  family  escaped  an  In- 
dian raid.  The  common  lot  was  not  one  of  uninter- 
rupted progress.  It  often  happened  that  when  a  man 
had  got  his  house  walls  chinked  and  his  roof  clap- 
boarded  ;  when  a  cow  fed  on  the  luscious  cane  by  the 
river,  chickens  clucked  and  cackled  in  the  yard  and 
the  man  was  guiding  a  plow  behind  his  first  horse, 

323 


A  History  of  the 

a  party  of  raiders  came  to  the  clearing  and  wiped  out 
the  family  and  all  they  had  accumulated. 

The  instances  where  some  members  of  the  family 
were  slaughtered  and  some  escaped  are  many,  but 
rarely,  if  ever,  did  the  raiders  fail  to  burn  the  cabin 
and  destroy  the  stock  and  crops.  The  present-day  read- 
er notes  with  a  feeling  of  relief  that  in  this  and  that 
raid  the  Indians  were  unable  to  do  more  than  burn  a 
few  cabins,  but  imagine  the  bitterness  of  heart  with 
which  the  home  maker  returned  to  his  clearing  and 
found  that  the  results  of  two  or  three  years  of  the 
hardest  kind  of  toil  and  self-denial  had  been  all  but 
wholly  destroyed — the  clearing  only  remained. 

Yet  the  losses,  heavy  as  they  were,  had  some  com- 
pensation in  the  cultivation  of  the  sturdy  qualities  of  the 
people.  For  it  zvas  a  characteristic  of  the  men  and 
women  who  made  the  Mississippi  Valley  to  persist. 
The  unsurpassed  pluck  that  made  men  with  mortal 
wounds  use  their  ebbing  strength  to  give  a  last  blow 
to  the  enemy,  made  the  living  begin  over  again  and 
over  again,  no  matter  how  many  times  they  were 
ruined.  They  were  of  the  tribe  of  John  Paul  Jones, 
and  when  asked  if  they  had  surrendered  replied  in- 
variably : 

"I  have  not  yet  begun  the  fight." 

Even  when  unmolested  by  Indians,  the  home  mak- 
ers ordinarily  had  but  a  poor  market  for  their  surplus 
products.  Here  is  a  price  list  published  as  late  as  1793, 
when  peace  was  secured  and  the  thronging  emigrants 
consumed  nearly  all  the  surplus  of  the  older  settlers. 

"Indian  corn  is  from  Qd  to  is  per  bushel.  Beef 
is  from  i  i-2d  to  2d  per  lb.     Veal,  2  i-2d  per  ditto. 

324 


Mississippi   Valley. 

Mutton,  3d  ditto.  Pork  is  from  2d  to  2  i-2d  per  lb. 
Bacon,  3  i-2d  to  4d.  Bacon  hams  from  4d  to  5  i-2d. 
Salt  beef,  2d.  Hung  or  dried  beef,  3d.  Neat's  tongues, 
6d,  each.  Butter  is  from  2  i-2d  to  3  i-2d  per  lb. 
*  *  *  Most  people  make  their  own  sugar;  but  when  it 
is  sold,  the  price  is  from  3d  to  4  i-2d  per  lb." 

In  November,  1780,  the  Virginia  Legislature  di- 
vided Kentucky  into  three  counties,  Jefferson,  Lincoln 
and  Fayette.  John  Floyd,  Benjamin  Logan  and  John 
Todd  were  commissioned  Colonels  for  the  three  coun- 
ties in  the  order  named,  and  George  Rogers  Clark,  who 
was  stationed  at  the  Falls,  was  placed  over  all,  with 
the  rank  of  Brigadier  general.  Roosevelt  notes  that 
at  the  first  court  held,  (Harrodsburg),  "the  first  grand 
jury  impanelled  presented  nine  persons  for  selling 
liquor,  eight  for  adultery  and  fornication,  and  the  clerk 
of  Lincoln  county  for  not  keeping  a  table  of  fees."  The 
first  court  house  and  jail  were  built  of  logs. 

In  1782,  several  grist  mills  had  been  erected,  and 
it  is  likely  that  sprouted  corn  appeared  among  the  first 
grists  brought  to  these  mills,  for  distilleries  were 
erected  at  the  same  time. 

In  1782  one  Jacob  Yoder  built  a  flat  boat  at  Red- 
stone and  carried  a  cargo  of  whiskey  to  New  Orleans 
with  some  profit.  It  is  likely  that  whiskey  was  about 
the  first  product  manufactured  for  export,  and  the 
home  demand  was  not  inconsiderable.  The  fact  is 
the  frontier  life — the  work  of  chopping  trees,  and 
grubbing  around  stumps,  day  after  day,  and  living, 
the  while,  on  plenty  of  meat  and  corn  bread — created 
an  appetite  for  liquor.  The  backwoodsman  liked  the 
taste  of  rum  and  whiskey,  and  he  also  enjoyed  the 

325 


A  History  of  the 

effect  it  produced  upon  him.  When  Wheeling  was 
besieged  in  1782,  the  garrison  narrowly  escaped  de- 
struction because  nearly  all  the  men  went  down  the 
river  to  a  place  where  a  keg  of  rum  had  been  landed 
and  concealed — went  there  with  the  deliberate  pur- 
pose of  getting  hilariously  drunk.  But  they  sent  out 
two  scouts,  as  a  matter  of  precaution,  and  these  found 
signs  of  danger  before  the  drinking  bout  was  fairly 
started,  and  the  garrison  thus  escaped. 

Redstone  Old  Fort,  (Brownsville  in  1902),  was  the 
starting  point  of  the  river  navigation  in  those  days. 
To  Redstone  came  all  the  overland  traffic  bound  down 
the  river,  and  the  reputation  of  that  town  for  drunken- 
ness and  debauchery  became  world  wide.  Limestone, 
Ky.,  (now  the  orderly  Maysville),  was  also  called  a 
tough  town.  But  it  must  be  remembered  that  the  out- 
laws and  ne'er-do-wells  that  came  to  the  frontier, 
gravitated  to  the  settlements  and  gave  them  evil 
reputations  even  when  the  majority  of  the  inhabitants 
were  reputable  people.  It  was  the  rule  for  every  man 
to  mind  his  own  business,  and  in  no  way  meddle  with 
that  of  others.  And  what  was  worse,  war — the  con- 
stantly-impending danger — made  men  reckless,  while 
the  idleness  due  to  the  necessity  of  remaining  in  pali- 
saded settlements,  made  any  diversion  welcome  even 
to  sober-minded  citizens.  They  ran  races,  with  bottles 
of  whiskey  for  prizes.  They  drank  their  winnings. 
They  fought  each  other  "rough  and  tumble."  It  was 
not  uncommon  for  a  man  to  lose  an  eye  in  one  of  these 
rough  and  tumble  fights.  If  one  fighter  got  a  chance 
he  pressed  his  thumb  into  the  eye  of  his  opponent  and 
literally  "gouged"  it  out. 

326 


Mississippi   Valley. 

Europeans — especially  Englishmen — who  came  to 
the  region  as  tourists,  a  little  later,  were  horrified  by 
the  sight  of  such  fighting.  They  said  it  was  utterly 
barbarous.  The  civilized  way  to  fight  was  for  the 
combatants  to  stick  swords  into  each  other. 

On  the  whole,  however,  as  has  been  noted,  the 
distinguishing  characteristic  of  the  early  settlers  was 
the  love  of  order — as  it  is  a  distinguishing  character- 
istic to-day.  They  talked  much  of  their  love  of  liberty. 
Their  orators  told  them  that  liberty  was  the  rock-in- 
place  foundation  of  their  prosperity.  But  now  that 
there  is  no  danger  of  any  well-established  republican 
government  reverting  to  monarchy — now  that  every 
American  fully  comprehends  the  value  of  his  right  to 
select  the  hero  who  is  to  reign  over  him — it  is  worth 
while  to  note  the  influence  of  order  on  the  prosperity 
of  the  people.  Order  and  justice  under  a  despotism  are 
now  seen  to  be  better  than  anarchy,  if  one  has  to 
choose. 

The  frontiersmen  made  stump  speeches,  (literally 
from  the  stump  tops),  on  liberty,  but  they  loved  an 
orderly  state  of  society  more  than  they  did  liberty! 
Boone  and  his  associates  at  Boonesborough ;  Robertson, 
Shelby  and  Sevier  on  the  Watauga;  Robertson,  again, 
and  his  friends  at  Nashville,  org-anized  governments 
and  enacted  laws  to  supply  what  they  saw  to  be  the 
chief  need  of  the  communities  they  had  gathered.  And 
they  enforced  those  laws — preserved  order — at  the 
muzzles  of  Deckhard  rifles,  with  barrels  three  feet 
six  inches  long,  and  bullets  that  ran  seventy  to  the 
pound,  though  a  rawhide  halter  sometimes  took  the 
place  of  the  rifle. 

327 


A  History  of  the 

One  Sunday,  as  Col.  William  Campbell,  a  leader 
living  at  the  head  of  the  Tennessee  valley,  was  riding 
home  from  Doak's  church,  he  saw  a  disreputable  citizen 
— a  Tory — ride  across  the  trail  ahead  of  him.  The 
Tory  refused  to  stop,  when  hailed,  and  at  that  Camp- 
bell, who  was  carrying  a  baby,  handed  the  child  to  a 
servant  and  dashing  after  the  Tory  caught  him. 
»•  The  court  was  convened  under  the  nearest  tree,  and 
it  was  proved  that  the  Tory  was  riding  a  stolen  horse. 
Such  violations  of  good  order  could  not  be  endured, 
and  they  ceased  forever  so  far  as  that  Tory  was  con- 
cerned, for  Campbell  hanged  him  to  a  tree  and  rode 
on  home  with  a  good  appetite  for  the  somewhat  be- 
lated meal. 

And  strong  as  was  the  liberty  among  the  people 
there,  a  time  came  when,  to  secure  certain  other  in- 
terests, many  of  the  population,  (including  even  John 
Sevier  and  Robertson),  were  ready  to  go  over  to  the 
Spanish. 

One  might  dwell  on  the  prowess  of  many  individual 
woodsmen  in  their  warfare  on  the  enemy.  There  were 
Lewis  Wetzel  and  his  brothers.  There  were  Samuel 
Brady  and  a  host  of  others.  These  men  were  counted  the 
heroes  of  the  frontiers,  because  of  the  number  of 
scalps  they  took.  These  men  stood  high  in  the  frontier 
estimation  precisely  as  certain  braves  stood  high  in  In- 
dian villages.  But  these  men  did  infinitely  more  harm 
than  good  to  the  frontier.  They  were  animated  by  a  de- 
sire for  revenge,  and  a  love  of  blood.  They  were  de- 
stroyers, not  builders.  There  was  no  strategic  value  in 
their  fighting,  while  lasting  injury  was  done  by  their 
words  and  example  to  the  young  people  of  the  whole  re- 

328 


Mississippi   Valley. 

gion.  White  boys  were  taught  to  hunt  Indians  as  they 
were  taught  to  hunt  bears  and  wolves.  The  ambition  to 
parade  a  scalp  was  as  rampant  on  the  frontier  as  among 
the  Indian  wigwams.  The  courage  and  skill  of  these 
men,  if  admirable  when  properly  directed,  yet  became 
the  bane  of  the  youth  of  the  whole  frontier,  from  the 
lakes  to  the  Gulf.  It  was  solely  because  of  the  bar- 
barism in  the  human  mind  that  fighters  held  social 
rank  then,  and  hold  it  now. 

It  was  on  October  17,  1781,  (the  fourth  anniver- 
sary of  Burgoyne's  surrender),  that  Lord  Cornwallis 
hung  out  the  white  flag  at  Yorktown,  and  when  the 
news  reached  the  prime  minister  of  England  he  ''walked 
wildly  up  and  down  the  room,  throwing  his  arms 
about,  and  crying,  *Oh  God !  It  is  all  over !  It  is  all  over ! 
It  is  all  over!'" 

Because  of  the  Gnadenhutten  outrage,  the  frontier 
was  yet  to  be  raided  worse  than  ever,  and  the  British 
at  Detroit  were  to  make  a  last  effort  to  drive  the 
frontier  people  to  the  east  side  of  the  mountains.  But 
there  was  no  power  among  either  British  or  Indians  to 
accomplish  such  a  result.  The  frontier  home-maker 
had  a  wide-spread  footing  on  the  soil,  and  with  his  axe 
he  hewed  the  bounds  of  the  Nation  to  the  Mississippi. 


329 


BRIG.     GEN.    ANTHONY    WAYNE. 

From  a  pencil   sketch  by  Col.   John   Trumbull,  of   the 

Revolutionary  Army. 


XXI 


FIGHTING   TO   POSSESS  LAND  ALREADY  WON. 

Story  of  the  Posts  in  the  Northwest  that  were  Retained 
by  the  British  after  Agreeing  to  Abandon  Them — 
The  Indians  Urged  to  Slaughter  the  Women  and 
Qiildren  of  the  American  Frontier  in  order  to  Pro- 
mote the  British  Fur  Trade — St.  Clair's  Defeat — 
"Mad"  Anthony  Wayne  to  the  Rescue — Wayne's 
March  to  the  Maumee — The  Battle  of  Fallen  Timber 
— Land  of  the  Mississippi  Under  the  Flag  at  Last. 

The  story  of  the  making  of  the  treaty  of  peace 
between  Great  Britain  and  the  United  States,  at  the 
end  of  the  War  of  the  Revolution,  is  one  of  the  most 
pleasing  in  the  history  of  the  Nation.  In  April,  1782, 
Mr.  Richard  Osw^ald  was  sent  by  Shelburne,  the  Brit- 
ish Colonial  Minister  to  Paris  to  consult  with  Frank- 
lin.    Oswald  was  one  of  Franklin's  intimate  friends. 

331 


A  History  of  the 

He  had  married  an  American.     It  was  easy  for  these 
two  men  to  agree  on  preHminary  matters.     John  Jay 
and  John  Adams  went  to  Paris  to  assist  in  the  final 
work.     The  French  minister  was  eager  to  confine  the 
new  Nation  within  the  Atlantic  watershed  of  the  Alle- 
ghanies,  and  Congress  had  instructed  the  American 
commissioners  to  follow  his  dictation  when  making 
peace.    But  soon  after  the  final  negotiations  began,  we 
had  there  "the  strange  spectacle  of  the  colonies  joining 
with  their  enemy,  the  mother  country,  to  circumvent 
the  scheme  of  their  own  allies,"  as  "A  Century  of  Amer- 
ican Diplomacy"  says.    Shelburne  preferred  the  Ameri- 
cans to  the  Spanish   for  neighbors  along  the  Great 
Lakes.    "He  recommended  to  the  British  negotiator  to 
so  act  as  'to  regain  the  affections  of  the  Americans.'  " 
Through  the  work  of  George  Rogers  Clark  the  Ameri- 
cans held  the  Illinois  region,  and  the  British  negotiator 
readily  acknowledged  the  right  of  possession.     The 
fact  is,  as  pointed  out  by  Wharton,  "the  treaty  of 
peace  was  not  a  grant  of  independence,  but  was  a 
partition  of  the  Empire."    In  this  "separation"  so  much 
of  the  British  Empire  as  lay  within  stated  bounds  was 
set  up  as  the  United  States  of  America.     It  was  a 
separation  that  carried  with  it  the  old  reciprocal  rights, 
and  "the  idea  of  a  future  reciprocity  between  the  two 
Nations,  based  on  old  tradition,  as  moulded  by  a  mod- 
ern economical  liberalism,  was  peculiarly  attractive  to 
Shelburne,"  (J.  Q.  Adams  quoted  by  Wharton):    The 
western  limit  of  the  United  States  was  readily  placed 
where  the  British  limit  had  been,— on  the  Mississippi. 
Those  who  have  confidence  in  the  characteristics  of 
the  Anglo-Saxon  race  may  well  consider  what  results 

332 


Mississippi   Valley. 

would  have  followed  if  the  British  had  continued  to 
maintain  a  friendly  attitude  toward  the  new  Nation. 

But  no  sooner  had  the  treaty  been  made  than  the 
British  began  to  feel  that  they  had  shown  weakness  in 
their  effort  "to  regain  the  affections  of  the  Americans." 
They  were  poor  losers.  In  fact  they  were  "welchers." 
They  refused  to  give  up  the  posts  they  had  agreed  to 
evacuate.  Ostensibly  the  frontier  posts  were  held  to 
compel  the  Americans  to  restore  the  Tories  the  property 
that  had  been  confiscated,  and  to  pay  certain  debts  owed 
by  individuals  to  British  merchants.  But  the  real  cause 
was  the  feeling  that  they  had  been  too  liberal  in  mak- 
ing the  treaty.  "God  forbid,  if  I  shall  ever  have  a 
hand  in  another  peace,"  wrote  Strachey,  (an  under 
secretary)  who  assisted  the  British  commissioner  Os- 
wald in  making  the  treaty. 

The  discontent  created  by  the  feeling  that  too  much 
had  been  conceded  was  greatly  increased  by  the  protests 
sent  home  by  the  fur  traders  of  Canada.  In  the  history 
of  America  the  fur  trade  has  done  at  the  north  what 
the  discovery  of  gold  did  at  the  south.  In  grasping  at 
the  profits  of  the  fur  trade,  the  traders  hesitated  at  no 
crime,  and  no  outrage  on  human  rights.  Under  the 
treaty  the  British  fur  traders  were  to  be  excluded  from 
the  United  States  territory,  and  they  estimated  the  trade 
so  to  be  lost  at  $450,000  a  year.  It  was  in  good  part 
to  save  this  part  of  the  fur  trade  that  the  frontier  posts 
of  the  United  States  were  retained  by  the  British  after 
they  had  agreed  to  evacuate  them. 

But  not  only  were  the  posts  retained.  The  com- 
manders of  the  British  garrisons,  and  the  traders  who 
had  store  houses  at  every  post,  continued  to  urge  the 

333 


A  History  of  the 

Indians  to  make  forays  against  the  American  frontier, 
much  as  they  had  done  during  the  war.  The  purchase 
of  scalps  came  to  an  end,  indeed,  but  in  every  other 
way  the  soldiers  and  traders  constantly  incited  the  In- 
dians to  harass  the  advancing  frontiersmen.  The  rea- 
son for  this  attitude  was  found  in  the  fact  that  the  fron- 
tiersmen were  home-makers.  The  British  were  anxious 
that  the  territory  northwest  of  the  Ohio  should  re- 
main a  game  preserve  where  a  crop  of  beaver  skins 
could  be  gathered  every  year.  Said  Sir  John  Johnson, 
in  a  letter  to  Joseph  Brant,  the  Mohawk  chief,  dated 
Montreal,  22  February,  1791 :  "As  you  certainly  are 
all  free  and  independent,  I  think  you  will  have  a  right 
to  insist  upon  disposing  of  whatever  lands  you  judge 
fit  to  reserve  for  the  General  Confederacy,  in  whatever 
manner,  and  to  whomsoever  you  please.  *  *  *  No 
just  right  or  claim  can  be  supported  beyond  the  line 
of  1768,  and  to  the  western  line  of  the  land  ceded  or 
sold  by  the  Indians  to  the  states  since  the  war."  He 
adds  that  in  a  letter  to  Lord  Dorchester,  Governor  of 
Canada,  "I  took  the  liberty  of  saying  that  the  Ameri- 
cans had  no  claim  to  any  part  of  the  country  beyond 
the  line  established  in  1768,  at  Fort  Stanwix." 

The  chief  object  of  British  diplomacy  in  Canada, 
at  that  time,  was  to  wrest  the  territory  northwest  of 
the  Ohio  from  the  United  States  and  set  it  up  as  the 
territory  of  a  "General  Confederacy"  of  Indians  who 
were  to  be,  of  course,  under  British  protection.  And 
with  that  end  in  view,  for  nearly  twelve  years  the  sol- 
diers and  traders  at  the  posts  encouraged  and  fitted  out 
Indian  parties  that  haunted  the  Ohio  river,  and  lurked 
in  the  forests  about  the  cabins  of  the  settlers. 

334 


V 


Mississippi   Valley. 

No  details  of  these  raids  need  be  given  because  they 
were  all  alike  and  similar  to  those  of  the  war.  Children 
were  slaughtered,  men  were  tortured,  and  every  kind 
of  property  was  destroyed  in  order  to  beat  back  the  hu- 
man tide  that  was  flowing  through  the  passes  of  the 
Alleghanies,  One  authority  says  that  1,500  people  were 
killed  in  Kentucky  alone,  by  the  Indian  raids  during 
the  seven  years  following  the  treaty  of  peace  with  Great 
Britain,  while  another  authority  estimates  the  total  loss 
of  life  due  to  these  raids  at  5,000.  It  should  be  remem- 
bered, too,  that  by  the  treaties  of  Fort  Stanwix,  (Oc- 
tober 3-21,  1784)  and  Fort  Finney,  (January  26 — Feb- 
ruary I,  1786),  the  Indians  had  acknowledged  the  sov- 
ereignty of  the  United  States  over  their  country. 

For  several  years  the  Americans  acted  only  on  the 
defensive  or  made  counter  raids  that  were  effective 
chiefly,  if  not  solely,  in  glutting  some  private  revenge. 

George  Rogers  Clark  went  up  to  the  Wabash  coun- 
try and  overawed,  for  a  time,  the  Indians  there,  and  in 
the  Illinois  country.  He  also  confiscated  the  goods  of 
some  Spanish  traders  in  retaliation  for  seizures  of  Am- 
erican flat  boats  by  the  Spanish  down  the  Mississippi. 
Col.  Benjamin  Logan  made  a  raid  up  to  the  Shawnee 
towns  in  Ohio,  where  he  took  ten  scalps  and  thirty-two 
prisoners,  besides  burning  200  cabins  and  much  corn. 

In  1790  Gen.  Josiah  Harmar  with  a  force  of  320 
regulars  and  1,133  militia  marched  to  the  site  of  the 
modern  Ft.  Wayne,  Indiana.  He  burned  300  huts  and 
destroyed  20,000  bushels  of  corn,  but  he  lost  180  men 
in  encounters  with  the  Indians,  and  instead  of  inclining 
the  red  men  to  peace  he  encouraged  them  to  further 
warfare.   And  to  add  to  the  encouragement  of  the  red 

335 


A  History  of  the 

men,  the  British  supphed  them  with  an  abundance  of 
ammunition  immediately  after  Harmar's  retreat.  It  is 
worth  noting,  too,  that  Lord  Dorchester,  Governor  of 
Canada,  while  issuing-  ammunition  through  the  fron- 
tier posts,  on  American  territory,  to  the  Indians  was 
publicly  denying  that  this  had  been  done. 

Meantime,  while  frontier  guns  were  accomplishing 
little  or  nothing  the  frontier  axe  was  doing  something. 
A  notable  tool  was  the  American  axe — thin-bladed, 
long-handled,  and  light  in  weight.  The  best  woodsmen, 
then  as  now,  found  that  an  axe  weighing  from  three 
and  a  half  to  four  pounds  was  just  right,  and  the  blade 
was  modeled  by  smiths  who  had  chopped  down  trees  as 
well  as  hammered  steel.  The  American  axe  has  never 
been  equalled. 

With  the  axe,  settlements  were  made  on  both  sides 
of  the  Ohio  in  spite  of  raids.  In  1785  Fort  Harmar  was 
built  at  the  mouth  of  the  Muskingum  to  restrain  the  In- 
dians. On  October  27,  1787,  the  Ohio  Company,  an 
aggregation  of  New  England  men  that  included  both 
home-makers  and  speculators,  bought  of  Congress  964,- 
285  acres  of  land  opposite  Fort  Harmar  at  the  junction 
of  the  Ohio  and  Muskingum,  (the  land  lay  on  the  north 
side  of  the  Ohio),  agreeing  to  pay  $642,856.66.  Gen. 
Rufus  Putnam  was  a  leader  among  these  home  makers. 
It  was  a  company  composed  chiefly  of  soldiers  of  the 
Revolution,  but  there  were  enough  speculators  in  it  to 
throw  a  shadow  of  disrepute  over  the  transaction.  The 
Rev.  Manasseh  Cutler,  a  man  who  "believed,  as  that 
sort  of  man  often  does,  in  making  his  neighbors  and 
those  he  knew  best  his  associates  in  any  hazardous  un- 
dertaking," (Winsor),  was  the  leader  of  the  specula- 

336 


MARIE    ANTOINETTE. 


Queen  of  France,  wife  of  Louis  XVI.     The  town  of  Marietta, 
Ohio,  was  named  for  this  lady. 


Mississippi   Valley. 

tors.  He  was  the  man  who  "worked"  Congress  for 
the  grant.  The  total  breadth  obtained  by  the  specula- 
tors was  5,000,000  acres,  the  price  of  which  was  to  be 
$3,500,000.  The  land  beyond  the  grant  for  the  settle- 
ment of  soldiers  was  to  be  sold  as  a  speculation,  and 
Cutler  in  connection  with  Joel  Barlow  and  Col.  William 
Duer,  by  means  of  descriptive  circulars  that  were  delib- 
erately false,  sold  a  considerable  breadth  to  a  com- 
pany of  Frenchmen  whose  misfortunes,  after  reaching 
the  banks  of  the  Ohio,  were  great.  An  interesting  and 
instructive  but  very  unpleasant  book  might  be  written 
on  the  work  of  dishonest  land  speculators  in  the  Miss- 
issippi Valley. 

On  April  2,  1788,  Putnam,  with  a  party  of  survey- 
ors and  engineers,  left  the  Youghiogheny  in  a  bullet 
proof  flat  boat,  and  on  the  7th  reached  Ft.  Harmar. 
They  then  surveyed  the  plot  purchased  of  Congress,  and 
built  the  town  of  Marietta,  Ohio.  It  is  the  proud  boast 
of  the  Marietta  people,  in  these  days,  (and  of  all  Ohio 
as  well),  that  the  settlers  under  Putnam  brought  with 
them  a  library.  The  people  of  the  region  have  often 
boasted,  also,  that  the  ordinance,  (July  13,  1787),  for 
the  government  of  the  region  northwest  of  the  Ohio, 
(in  the  writing  and  passage  of  which  Cutler  was 
the  leading  spirit),  prohibited  slavery.  The  ordi- 
nance did  not  extirpate  slavery,  as  it  was  supposed  to 
do,  but  it  undoubtedly  had  much  influence  in  creating  a 
public  sentiment  againt  the  detestable  instituion. 

Then,  too,  the  men  who  followed  Putnam  were  for 
the  most  part  old  comrades  in  arms — men  who  had 
fought  for  the  freedom  of  the  Nation  in  the  war  of  the 
Revolution.     At  a  time  when  the  demagogues  in  Ken- 

337 


'A  History  of  the 

tucky  were  telling  the  home-makers  that  a  separation 
from  the  States  east  of  the  Alleghanies  was  necessary 
for  their  welfare  it  was  worth  while  to  have  a  settlement 
on  the  Ohio  composed  of  men  who  had  proved  their  de- 
votion to  the  welfare  of  the  whole  people. 

Another  interesting  feature  of  this  settlement  is 
found  in  the  method  of  dividing  the  land.  Instead  of  al- 
lowing the  settlers  to  go  into  the  region  and  pick  out 
claims  which  were  to  be  afterwards  surveyed,  to  please 
the  settler, as  was  done  in  Kentucky, the  whole  tract  was 
first  surveyed  into  townships  six  miles  square  and  each 
township  into  sections  one  mile  square.  Accordingly 
when  a  man  located  a  claim  the  land  taken  already  had 
ascertained  and  definite  bounds.  There  were  no  over- 
lapping claims  as  under  the  haphazard  scheme  that  had 
previously  prevailed. 

Marietta  was  settled  during  a  busy  season  on  the 
Ohio  river.  The  officers  at  Fort  Harmar  counted  more 
than  500  flat  boats  carrying  10,000  emigrants  down 
the  Ohio  river. 

On  July  9,  1788,  Gen.  Arthur  St.  Clair,  who  had 
seen  service  under  Wolf  at  Quebec,  and  had  but  re- 
cently been  president  of  Congress,  arrived  at  Marietta, 
bringing  an  appointment  as  Governor  of  the  "North- 
west Territory." 

Meantime,  (May  15,  1788),  John  Cleve  Symmes 
bought  a  large  tract  of  land  on  the  Ohio  river  between 
the  Great  and  Little  Miami  rivers;  and  in  July  "with 
fourteen  four-horse  wagons  and  sixty  persons  in  his 
train,"  he  came  to  his  purchase.  Among  the  followers 
of  Symmes  was  John  Filson,  a  surveyor,  who  is  best 
known  as  the  reporter  who  wrote  the  story  of  Daniel 

338 


MAJ.    CEN.    ARTHUR  ST.  CI.AIR. 
From  a  pencil  sketch  by  Col.  John  Trumbull. 


Mississippi   Valley. 

Boone.  When  the  company  wished  a  name  for  the 
town  which  they  proceeded  to  lay  out,  Filson  made  one. 
Directly  opposite  the  new  town  was  the  mouth  of  the 
Licking  river.  Filson  thought  that  "Town-opposite-the- 
mouth-of-the-Licking"  would  be  a  proper  name  for  the 
settlement,  and  he  wrote  it  thus:  L  for  Licking;  os 
for  mouth ;  anti  for  opposite,  and  ville  for  town,  which 
being  combined  gave  Losantiville.  But  when  St.  Clair 
came  to  the  settlement  he  determined  to  bestow  on  the 
town  the  name  of  the  society  of  the  Revolutionary  offi- 
cers, known  as  the  Cincinnati. 

It  was  on  November  4,  1790,  that  Harmar  began  his 
"disorderly  retreat"  from  the  Indian  country.  On  Jan- 
uary 2,  1 79 1,  a  big  party  of  Indians,  Delawares  and 
Wyandottes,  attacked  a  settlement  on  the  Muskingum 
called  Big  Bottom,  an  off-shoot  of  Gen.  Rufus  Putnam's 
Marietta  settlement.  They  killed  twelve  and  carried  off 
four  prisoners.  On  the  loth  Simon  Girty,  with  300 
warriors,  appeared  at  Dunlap  Station,  near  Cincinnati, 
but  accomplished  little  because  aid  came  from  the  larger 
town.  In  February  the  Indians  swarmed  along  the  Al- 
leghany river. 

When  the  news  of  the  first  of  these  raids  reached 
Washington,  he  notified  Congress,  (January  24,  1791), 
and  in  due  course  a  new  expedition,  of  which  Gov.  St. 
Clair  was  to  have  charge  in  person,  was  authorized. 

Washington  believed  that  this  expedition  would 
convince  the  Indians  that  the  "enmity  of  the  United 
States  is  as  much  to  be  dreaded  as  their  friendship  is 
to  be  desired,"  while  Jefferson  said,  "I  hope  we  shall 
drub  the  Indians  well  this  summer,  and  then  change 
our  plan  from  war  to  bribery." 

339 


A  History  of  the 

Both  these  expressions  are  of  interest  chiefly  be- 
cause it  is  apparent  that  neither  Jefferson  nor  Wash- 
ington saw  the  strong  hand  of  the  British  that  was 
pushing  the  Indians  into  aggressions.  But  the  strength 
of  that  hand  appeared  nevertheless,  further  on. 

St.  Clair  reached  Ft.  Washington,  at  Cincinnati, 
where  he  was  to  take  charge  of  the  forces  for  the  ex- 
pedition, in  May,  1791,  but  it  was  not  until  October 
that  a  number  of  soldiers  deemed  adequate  for  the  oc- 
casion was  gathered  there.  While  waiting  for  the  re- 
inforcements St.  Clair  fell  sick,  and  so  did  Gen.  Richard 
Butler,  a  notable  soldier,  the  second  in  command. 
The  powder  supplied  by  the  swindling,  (one  ought  to 
say  murderous)  contractors  was  bad.  The  oxen  were 
few  in  number  and  too  lean  in  body.  Worse  yet,  the 
recruits  were,  with  few  exceptions,  an  utterly  worthless 
mob  swept  from  the  streets  of  the  seaboard  cities. 

However,  St.  Clair  set  forth,  at  last,  and  on  Novem- 
ber 3,  1 79 1,  made  camp  at  a  spot  where  Fort  Recovery, 
Ohio,  now  stands  on  a  branch  of  the  Wabash  river. 
Little  scouting  had  been  done,  and  no  adequate  precau- 
tions to  repel  an  attack  were  made  after  pitching  the 
camp. 

Taking  advantage  of  these  conditions  the  Indians, 
led  by  Little  Turtle,  fell  upon  the  camp  half  an  hour 
before  sunrise  next  day,  and  by  9  o'clock,  the  army  was 
in  disorderly  retreat.  The  killed  numbered  630,  the 
seriously  wounded  280,  and  of  1,400  all  told,  under  St. 
Clair,  "scarce  half  a  hundred  were  unhurt." 

St.  Clair's  defeat,  in  its  effect  on  the  American  peo- 
ple, was  stupefying,  exasperating  and  conducive  to  a 
mental  condition  not  far  from  imbecility — all  accord- 

340 


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Mississippi   Valley. 

ing  to  the  quality  of  individuals.  A  few  were  made 
firmer  in  their  determination  to  resist  aggression.  The 
exasperated  wished  to  wreck  vengeance  on  St.  Clair. 
The  partially-made  imbeciles,  if  they  may  be  called  so, 
demanded  negotiations  with  the  victorious  red  men  in 
order  to  buy  peace  of  them.  Incredible  as  it  may  seem, 
those  were  the  days  when  the  American  Congress  re- 
fused to  build  war  ships  to  protect  American  commerce, 
but  they  did  actually  build  a  fine  frigate,  ballast  it  with 
barrels  of  silver  dollars  and  send  it  as  tribute  to  an 
African  pirate  to  purchase  his  favor.  The  Jeffersonian 
policy  of  "bribery"  was  fully  tried. 

Negotiations  were  opened  with  the  Indians,  through 
the  intervention  of  the  Senecas.  Brant,  the  Mohawk 
Chief,  who  was  a  leader  in  the  council,  in  a  speech  some 
years  later,  told  how  the  British  exerted  their  influence 
to  defeat  the  efforts  for  peace.  "To  our  surprise,"  he 
said,  "when  on  the  point  of  entering  upon  a  treaty  with 
the  Commissioners,  we  found  that  it  was  opposed  by 
those  acting  under  the  British  government." 

In  fact  the  Commissioners  were  treated  with  marked 
insolence  by  Simon  Girty,  who  was  interpreter  for  the 
Indians.  It  was  a  particularly  gloomy  period  on  the 
frontier,  for  the  Spanish  still  held  Natchez,  and  were 
grasping  for  a  wide  territory  in  the  southwest  by  means 
of  Indian  raids. 

But  in  the  meantime  one  of  the  inspiring  men  of 
the  American  army — General  Anthony  Wayne — "Mad 
Anthony" — was  appointed  to  command  a  new  expe- 
dition against  the  Indians,  and  there  was,  at  last,  hope 
for  peace. 

In  the  history  of  the  early  struggles  of  the  Amer- 
341 


A  History  of  the 

ican  people  the  one  man  who  has  not  received  the  full 
measure  of  credit  due  him  is  Gen.  Anthony  Wayne. 
If  the  average  reader  be  asked  what  Wayne  did  to  gain 
fame  the  reply,  quickly  given,  is  that  he  captured  Stony 
Point.  The  spectacular  dash  of  the  man  at  Stony  Point 
may  well  be  remembered,  for  we  all  love  a  good  leader 
in  the  thick  of  the  fight;  but  the  capture  of  the  rocky 
peninsula  below  West  Point  was  but  a  trivial  skirmish 
in  comparison  with  the  splendid  work  he  was  now  to 
do.  Indeed,  when  rightly  considered,  the  charge  up  the 
rocks  of  the  promontory  called  Stony  Point  was  less 
significant  than  the  fact  that  he  ordered  his  command 
to  appear  on  parade  "well  powdered"  before  he  started 
them  on  their  long  march  through  the  mountains  to 
reach  the  point  of  attack. 

Even  Washington,  it  appears,  failed,  after  the  Revo- 
lution ended,  to  appreciate  all  the  worth  of  this  most 
capable  brigadier,  for  when  he  was  going  over  the 
names  of  the  men  available  to  retrieve  the  Ohio  country, 
Wayne  was  really  his  second  choice.  Here  is  Wash- 
ington's valuation  of  "Mad"  Anthony  Wayne  in  1791 : 

"More  active  and  enterprising  than  judicious  and 
cautious.  No  economist,  it  is  feared.  Open  to  flattery, 
vain ;  easily  imposed  upon  and  liable  to  be  drawn  into 
scrapes."  In  such  words  did  Washington  describe  this 
General,  while  choosing  him  for  the  command.  But 
Hammond,  the  British  minister  to  the  United  States, 
described  him  as  the  most  active,  vigilant,  and  enter- 
prising officer  in  the  American  army. 

When  Wayne  reached  Pittsburg,  and  began  to  pre- 
pare for  the  work  before  him,  (June,  1792),  the  task 
might  well  have  appalled  a  man  less  resourceful.    The 

342 


Mississippi   Valley. 

contractors — they  who  had  supplied  St.  Clair  with  pow- 
der unfit  for  any  purpose — were  there,  eager  for  oppor- 
tunity to  fit  out  the  new  expedition  in  like  manner.  The 
town  contained,  as  frontier  towns  have  always  con- 
tained, numerous  vile  resorts  to  which  the  recruits  were 
enticed  whenever  a  shilling  could  be  wrung  from  them. 
And  the  recruits  were  of  the  quality  most  easily  enticed. 
Judge  Symmes  in  speaking  of  the  recruits  supplied  to 
St.  Clair  said : 

"Men  who  are  purchased  from  prisons,  wheelbar- 
rows and  brothels  at  two  dollars  per  month  will  never 
answer  for  fighting  Indians." 

It  was  so.  They  were  utterly  worthless  in  the  St. 
Clair  expedition,  but  now  Wayne  was  supplied  with  a 
second  szveeping  from  the  "prisons  and  brothels."  By 
sleepless  vigilance  Wayne  could  sift  out  the  unfit  pow- 
der that  the  contractors  wished  to  foist  upon  him,  but 
from  these  unfit,  rotten  and  sick  recruits  there  w^as  no 
escape. 

Moreover,  he  had  to  wait  for  the  outcome  of  the 
negotiations  that  had  been  opened  by  the  commissioners 
with  the  exultant  Indians — negotiations  that  were  in- 
cited, not  by  Christian  philanthropy,  but  by  cowardice 
and  penury — an  important  distinction,  by  the  way,  and 
the  reader  may  well  consider  for  himself  the  bearing  of 
this  distinction  on  what  has  been  said,  hitherto,  about 
the  Quaker-Moravian  policy  of  philanthropy  toward 
the  Indians,  and  the  Jeffersonian  system  of  "bribery." 

Nevertheless  here  was  the  man  for  the  place,  and 
once  the  choice  had  been  made,  he  had  the  full  support 
of  Washington,  who  wrote  him  "not  to  be  sparing  of 
powder  and  lead  to  make  his  soldiers  marksmen." 

343 


A  History  of  the 

To  get  the  recruits  away  from  the  evil  influences  of 
a  frontier  town  a  camp  was  estabHshed  on  the  Ohio, 
twenty-seven  miles  below  Pittsburg,  Officers  as  well 
as  men  were  raw,  for  nearly  all  of  the  available  experi- 
enced officers  had  been  killed  at  St.  Clair's  defeat ;  but 
at  this  camp,  with  unwearied  patience,  Wayne  took  his 
forces  in  hand,  and  day  by  day  drilled  them  till  their 
watery  eyes  grew  clear,  their  trembling  chins  grew 
firm,  their  backs  stiffened  and  a  springing  step  replaced 
their  slouching  gait. 

When  this  much  was  done  he  taught  them  to  play 
with  the  bayonet,  and  then  he  taught  them  to  shoot. 

The  writers  of  the  annals  of  the  Ohio  river  pioneers 
tell,  with  wondering  zest,  how  Lewis  Wetzel  was  able 
to  load  his  rifle  while  running  at  top  speed  through  the 
forest,  and  their  wonder  is  justified  by  the  fact.  But 
this  Mad  Anthony  Wayne  trained  his  "boys  and  mis- 
creants" from  the  city  slums  until  he  had  an  army  of 
more  than  a  thousand  men  who  could  load  their  rifles 
as  they  ran,  with  scarce  a  stop,  fire  with  frontier  pre- 
cision; and  run  and  load  and  fire  again,  yelling  the 
while  like  a  legion  of  demons.  They  could  shoot  with 
precision — could  hit  a  six-inch  target  at  a  hundred 
paces — while  marching  at  quick-step  speed,  and  many 
of  them  could  do  as  well  on  the  run. 

The  commissioners  that  had  been  appointed  to  ne- 
gotiate with  victorious  Indians  for  a  peace  reached 
Niagara  in  May,  1793,  where  they  met  the  enemy — a 
combination  of  Indian  chiefs  and  British  officials.  While 
there  they  heard  fairly  accurate  accounts  of  the  work 
Wayne  was  doing,  and  after  the  fashion  of  peace  com- 
missioners w^ho  are  appointed  at  the  behest  of  cow- 

344 


Mississippi   Valley. 

ardice  and  penury,  they  made  haste  to  send  protests  to 
Washington.  Wayne's  successful  work  with  the  re- 
cruits was  angering  the  Indians,  said  the  commissioners, 
and  the  British — the  British  considered  such  work  "un- 
fair and  unwarrantable" ! 

Happily  a  Washington  was  at  the  head  of  the  Amer- 
ican Government,  and  Wayne  was  not  restrained  in 
his  work  as  drill  master.  He  moved  down  the  Ohio 
to  Cincinnati,  (May,  1793),  and  from  that  place  he 
marched  (October  7,  1793),  to  the  north  with  a  force 
of  more  than  2,000  men. 

The  time  for  a  fight  was  yet  a  long  way  off,  how- 
ever. Negotiations  inspired  by  penury  and  cowardice 
were  yet  in  hand,  and  on  October  13,  Wayne  camped 
for  the  winter  and  named  the  camp  Greenville,  after 
his  old  commander  when  fighting  for  liberty  in  the 
South ;  and  Greenville,  Ohio,  now  perpetuates  the  mem- 
ory of  the  camp. 

Having  secured  the  camp,  Wayne  sent  a  force  for- 
ward to  the  field  where  St.  Clair  had  been  defeated,  and 
built  Fort  Recovery.  The  Fort  was  armed  with  can- 
non abandoned  by  St.  Clair. 

The  effect  of  all  this  work  upon  the  enemy,  In- 
dians and  British,  was  notable.  As  the  years  had 
passed,  after  the  signing  of  the  treaty  of  peace  with 
Great  Britain,  a  new  source  of  trouble  had  risen.  The 
long  reign  of  corruption  in  France  had  culminated  in 
the  French  Revolution.  The  war  between  France  and 
England  that  followed  was  unavoidable.  With  the 
progress  of  this  war  the  attitude  of  the  British  Gov- 
ernment toward  the  United  States  had  steadily  grown 
arrogant.    It  is  important  to  note  that  this  arrogance 

345 


A  History  of  the 

was  due,  as  every  one  now  admits  without  dispute,  to 
the  weakness  of  the  young  Repubhc.  There  is  no  more 
important  lesson  to  be  learned  in  history  than  this,  that 
governments  are  always  devoid  of  the  chivalry  that 
keeps  a  good  fighter  from  hitting  an  antagonist  when  he 
is  down.  The  British  wanted  some  favors  from  the 
Americans — harbors  where  their  warships  could  refit 
and  dispose  of  prizes  and  recruit  their  crews — but  it 
never  occurred  to  a  British  statesman  to  show  any  less 
arrogance  and  antagonism  toward  the  Americans  on 
that  account.  On  the  contrary,  as  said,  the  arrogance 
increased. 

While  Wayne  was  at  Greenville,  Lord  Dorchester 
was  Governor  of  Canada.  Lord  Dorchester,  in  other 
days,  had  been  known  as  Sir  Guy  Carleton,  and  as  Sir 
Guy  Carleton  while  on  a  victorious  march  from  Canada 
to  the  Hudson,  had  been  stopped  by  a  puny  force  on 
Lake  Champlain  under  the  command  of  Benedict  Ar- 
nold. 'The  face  of  the  enemy"  at  Lake  Champlain  had 
turned  him  back  to  Canada.  Lord  Dorchester  had  no 
love  for  the  Americans,  and  on  February  lo,  1794,  at 
a  council  with  the  Indians  hostile  to  the  United  States, 
he  said,  referring  to  the  American  frontier : 

"Children,  since  my  return  I  find  no  appearance  of 
a  line  remains,  and  from  the  manner  in  which  the  peo- 
ple of  the  States  push  on,  and  act,  and  talk,  on  this  side, 
and  from  what  I  learn  of  their  country  towards  the  sea, 
/  shall  not  be  surprised  if  we  are  at  war  with  them  in 
the  course  of  the  present  year;  and  if  so,  a  line  must  be 
drazvn  by  the  warriors. 

"Children:  You  talk  of  selling  your  lands  to  the 
State  of  New  York.     I  have  told  you  there  is  no  line 

346 


Mississippi   Valley. 

between  them  and  its.  I  shall  acknowledge  no  lands  to 
be  theirs  which  have  been  encroached  on  by  them  since 
the  year  1783.  They  broke  the  peace,  and  as  they  kept 
it  not  on  their  part,  it  doth  not  bind  ours. 

"Children:  What  further  can  I  say  to  you?  You 
are  witnesses  on  our  parts  we  have  acted  in  the  most 
peaceable  manner,  and  borne  the  language  and  conduct 
of  the  people  of  the  United  States  with  patience.  But 
I  believe  our  patience  is  almost  exhausted." 

For  years  the  British  had  kept  the  Indians  fully 
supplied  with  arms  for  forays  against  the  American 
frontier,  and  now  that  Wayne  was  pushing  forward 
a  well-drilled  force,  and  the  Indians  needed  to  be  en- 
couraged to  meet  it,  the  Governor  of  Canada  said  to 
them,  "I  shall  not  be  surprised  if  we  are  at  war  with 
them  in  the  course  of  the  present  year."  The  Indians 
who  heard  those  words  accepted  them  as  a  promise  that 
the  British  would  help  with  troops  as  well  as  with  arms 
and  other  supplies.  Lord  Dorchester  so  intended  his 
words  to  be  understood. 

But  the  British  encouragement  did  not  stop  with 
an  implied  promise  of  help.  To  emphasize  the  effect 
of  Dorchester's  speech,  Lieut.  Gov.  John  Graves  Sim- 
coe  was  sent  with  three  companies  of  British  regulars 
to  the  rapids  of  the  Maumee,  where  a  fort  was  built. 
It  was  a  deliberate  invasion  of  American  territory  for 
the  purpose  of  wresting  the  Ohio  country  from  the 
American  people,  and  was  therefore  a  pleasant  work 
for  Simcoe,  who  also  hated  the  Americans. 

The  acts  of  the  British  authorities  had  theretofore 
been  characterized  by  what  Roosevelt  calls  "double 
dealing"  and  "smooth  duplicity,"  but  they  now  "began 

347 


A  History  of  the 

to  adopt  that  tone  of  brutal  insolence  which  reflects  the 
general  attitude  of  the  British  people  towards  the 
Americans." 

If  the  reader  thinks  this  is  laying  undue  stress  on 
the  attitude  of  the  British  I  must  apologize  by  saying 
that  stress  seems  desirable  because  of  the  tremendous 
contrast  afforded  when  compared  with  the  present 
(1902)  conditions  which  have  been  brought  about  by 
the  advancement  of  Christian  civilization,  and  the  de- 
velopment of  an  unequalled  fleet  of  American  warships. 

Hammond,  the  British  minister,  not  only  admitted 
that  aggressions  had  been  made  by  his  Government, 
but  he  justified  them  by  complaining  of  American  ag- 
gressions, the  chief  of  which  was  what  he  called  "the 
unparallelled  insult  which  has  been  recently  offered  at 
Newport,  Rhode  Island,"  wherein  the  citizens  of  that 
town  had  taken  six  impressed  Americans  from  the  Brit- 
ish sloop  of  war  Nautilus,  by  holding  her  captain  a 
prisoner  on  shore  until  he  released  them.  ( See  Wait's 
"Sta^e  Papers,"  vol.  ii).  To  liberate  American  citi- 
zens who  had  been  carried  by  a  press  gang  aboard  a 
British  warship,  and  there  compelled  to  serve  as  sailors, 
was  Hammond's  idea  of  an  "unparalleled  insult,"  and 
one  to  justify  an  armed  invasion. 

An  impartial  reading  of  the  documents  of  those 
days  shows  that  war  with  Great  Britain  loomed  high 
above  the  horizon.  With  a  less  capable  man  in  Wayne's 
place  the  deluge  would  have  fallen  upon  us. 

That  the  building  of  the  fort  at  the  foot  of  the  Mau- 
mee  encouraged  the  Indians  is  certain,  for  on  June  30, 
1794,  they  swarmed  down  to  Fort  Recovery.  But  they 
were  driven  back,  and  Wayne  having  been  reinforced, 

348 


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Mississippi   Valley. 

meantime,  with  i,6oo  mounted  Kentuckians,  he 
marched  to  the  St.  Marys  river,  a  branch  of  the  Mau- 
mee,  and  built  Fort  Adams  in  what  is  now  Mercer 
county,  Ohio.  Thence  he  marched  on  through  Van 
Wert  and  Paulding  counties,  (the  trail  could  be  seen 
forty  years  ago),  to  the  junction  of  the  Big  Auglaize 
and  the  Maumee,  where  he  built  Fort  Defiance. 

The  French  had  named  this  tributary  of  the  Mau- 
mee Au  Glaize  because  of  the  rich  loam  of  the  plains 
found  there.  The  fields  of  corn  stretched  away  for 
miles  in  all  directions,  but  no  night  trailing  of  a  maid- 
en's robe  around  those  fields  could  save  them  from  the 
desolating  host  that  had  come  to  them.  The  corn  was 
in  the  black  silk,  but  the  Indians  were  to  have  no  green 
corn  dance  that  year.  The  fields  were  laid  waste  to  the 
last  stalk.  The  Tories  and  Dorchester  and  Simcoe  were 
responsible  for  the  ills  the  Americans  had  suffered,  but 
the  Indians  had  to  bear  the  burden  then,  as  ever. 

Having  destroyed  the  corn,  Wayne  marched, 
August  15  ,  down  the  left  bank  of  the  Maumee.  It 
was  a  slow  march  because  Wayne  was  still  willing  to 
grant  peace  to  the  Indians.  But  a  delegation  of  Span- 
iards from  the  lower  Mississippi  came  to  give  heart  to 
the  Indians  by  tales  of  the  uprising  of  the  Southern 
Indians,  and  promises  of  Spanish  help.  More  impor- 
tant still,  the  new  British  fort  was  close  at  hand,  and 
the  Indians,  looking  to  its  garrison  for  help  and  succor, 
scorned  the  offer.  On  August  18,  Wayne  threw  up  a 
small  earthwork  at  the  head  of  the  rapids  of  the  Mau- 
mee, at  Waterville,  Ohio,  to  secure  the  baggage  and 
provisions,  and  on  the  morning  of  August  20,  1794, 
the  final  advance  was  made. 

349 


A  History  of  the 

Most  remarkable  was  that  field  of  battle.  In  days 
not  long  past,  a  tornado  had  come  whirling  along  from 
the  lakes,  ripping  up  the  giant  forest  trees  by  the  roots, 
and  piling  them  in  confused  masses,  for  miles  along 
the  river  bottom.  Behind  these  tangled  heaps  of  logs 
— the  "Fallen  Timbers" — lay  the  Indians,  numbering 
at  the  lowest  estimate  1,300.  With  them  lay  seventy 
Canadians  commanded  by  Capt.  William  Caldwell.  Had 
the  whole  territory  been  searched  no  safer  ground  could 
have  been  found  for  that  waiting  host  of  red  men. 

To  feel  his  way,  Wayne  sent  a  squadron  of  cavalry 
against  the  entanglement,  but  the  horsemen  were  hurled 
back  with  losses  that  threw  them  into  confusion,  and 
then  the  supreme  moment  of  the  day  had  come. 

Ordering  his  infantry  to  fix  bayonets,  Wayne 
stretched  a  line  of  them,  900  strong,  before  the  fallen 
timbers,  placed  the  remainder  of  the  infantry  some  dis- 
tance in  the  rear  for  a  reserve,  divided  the  cavalry  into 
two  bodies  to  turn  the  Indian  flanks,  and  sounded  the 
charge. 

And  as  the  long  roll  of  the  guns  began,  the  battle 
line  dashed  forward  with  blood  curdling  yells,  pitch- 
forked the  enemy  from  behind  the  logs,  shot  them  down 
as  they  fled,  and  leaping  on  in  relentless  pursuit,  loaded 
and  fired,  again  and  again,  till  they  had  driven  the 
panic-stricken  hosts  far  beyond  the  British  fort. 

The  American  loss  was  33  killed  and  100  wounded, 
most  of  whom  fell  in  the  preliminary  charge  of  cavalry. 
The  Indian  and  Tory  loss  was  three  times  as  great. 
Four  British  rangers  were  found  dead  on  the  field. 

It  was  a  decisive  victory.  Not  only  were  the  In- 
dians scattered  in  a  panic,  but  what  was  of  far  greater 

350 


Mississippi   Valley. 

importance,  the  battle  taught  them  that  they  had  been 
meanly  deceived  by  the  British.  Dorchester,  Simcoe 
and  the  Tories  had  sicked  them  on  to  ravage  the  Amer- 
ican frontier,  and  then,  as  they  fled  for  life,  shut  tight 
the  gates  of  the  fort  that  had  been  ostentatiously  built 
for  their  support.  The  defeat  of  St.  Clair  was,  in  a  way, 
the  worst  in  the  history  of  our  Indian  wars ;  the  victory 
of  Wayne  was  the  most  convincing. 

They  called  the  hero  of  Stony  Point  and  the  Mau- 
mee  Rapids,  Mad  Anthony  Wayne.  The  title  was 
originated  by  an  Irish  soldier  who  had  been  confined 
in  a  guard  house  at  the  order  of  the  General,  and  it 
was  taken  up  by  the  people,  because  of  the  wild  enthusi- 
asm with  which  Wayne  led  his  men  when  the  supreme 
moment  of  battle  came.  But  observe  that  when  the  war 
of  the  Revolution  impended,  he  "ransacked  history" 
for  accounts  of  battles  that  he  might  learn  military 
tactics,  and  he  gave  his  days  to  the  training  of  his  neigh- 
bors. At  Stony  Point  he  appealed  to  the  pride  of  the 
men  by  parading  them  "clean-shaved  and  with  hair  well 
powdered,"  while  the  prelaid  plans  included  even  the 
slaughter  of  the  dogs  of  the  region  that  no  yelp  should 
betray  the  approach  of  the  assaulting  host.  And  last  of 
all,  when  the  honor  of  the  Nation  and  the  integrity  of 
its  territory  were  committed  to  his  care,  he  took  a  legion 
of  "boys  and  miscreants,"  gathered  from  the  slums  of 
the  coast  cities,  and  trained  them  until  their  skill 
equalled  if  it  did  not  surpass  that  of  the  most  noted 
backwoods  Indian  fighters.  His  courage  and  brilliancy 
in  time  of  battle  were  unsurpassed,  his  record  as  a 
drill  master  is  unequalled. 

The  next  day  after  the  battle,  called  Fallen  Tim- 
351 


A  History  of  tlie 

bers  because  of  the  place  where  the  Indians  hid,  the 
commander  of  the  British  fort — one  Major  Campbell 
—sent  a  messenger  to  ask  Wayne  "what  he  meant  by 
such  threatening  action  in  sight  of  His  Majesty's  flag?" 
Wayne  replied  that  his  "guns  talked  for  him."  Then 
Major  Campbell  threatened  to  open  fire  on  Wayne  if 
his  men  came  within  range  of  the  fort.  It  is  said  that 
Wayne  at  once  rode  to  the  fort  walls  in  the  hope  that 
Campbell  would  shoot,  and  thus  give  ample  excuse  for 
an  attack;  but  Campbell  became  suddenly  discreet. 

In  these  trying  conditions,  Wayne  showed  that 
Washington  had  been  mistaken  in  thinking  him  lacking 
in  judicial  sense.  He  swept  the  ground  clean  of  huts 
and  traders'  stores,  including  Tory  McKee's,  to  the 
walls  of  the  fort,  and  then  marched  up  the  river  de- 
stroying all  Indian  property  on  both  sides,  until  (Sep- 
tember 17),  he  reached  the  junction  of  the  St.  Marys 
and  St.  Joseph,  and  there  built  a  fort  the  memory  of 
which  is  perpetuated  to  this  day  by  the  vigorous  city  of 
Ft.  Wayne,  Ind.  It  was  a  point  of  great  importance, 
for  the  new  fort  commanded  the  portage  of  the  Wabash. 

For  twenty  years, — beginning  with  the  days  when 
Connolly,  as  Lord  Dunmore's  agent,  had  created  a  war 
with  the  Indians  along  the  Ohio — the  home  seekers 
who  had  crossed  the  Alleghanies,  had  been  harassed  by 
red  men  who  were  incited  to  devilish  deeds  by  the  Brit- 
ish, but  the  end  had  now  come.  The  British  were  ready 
to  make  a  treaty  that  would  avert  war,  and  the  Indians 
were  abandoned  to  their  fate.  The  end  for  which 
Washington  had  hoped  when  St.  Clair  marched  into 
the  Indian  Country  was  attained  by  "Mad"  Anthony 
Wayne.    The  Indians  saw  that  our  enmity  was  as  much 

352 


Mississippi   Valley. 

to  be  dreaded  as  our  friendship  was  to  be  desired.  The 
territory  northwest  of  the  Ohio  was  now  definitely 
opened  for  settlement,  and  homemakers  soon  thronged 
the  shores  of  Lake  Erie  as  well  as  the  banks  of  the  Ohio. 
Meantime,  while  Wayne  was  yet  on  the  way  to  the 
Maumee,  Jay  had  been  sent  to  England  to  negotiate  a 
treaty.  The  treaty  which  he  secured  was  better  than 
war,  and  that  is  the  best  one  can  say  of  it,  and  it  was 
that  far  desirable  only  because  the  news  of  Wayne's 
victory  arrived  in  London  while  Jay  was  negotiating. 
By  this  treaty,  concluded  November  i^,  1794,  the 
British  once  more  agreed  to  take  their  soldiers  out  of 
American  territory,  and  this  time  they  did  as  they 
agreed  to  do.  The  treaty  threw  us  into  actual  if  un- 
declared war  with  France,  but  the  integrity  of  the 
region  won  by  the  good  work  of  George  Rogers  Clark 
was,  at  last,  definitely  and  forever  secured.    • 


353 


JAMES    MADISON. 
From  the  original  portrait  by  Stuart. 


XXII 


IN  THE  SOUTHWEST  AFTER  THE  REVOLUTION. 

When  the  French  Government  Was  Treacherous  Toward 
the  United  States — PoHtical  Work  of  the  Deter- 
mined, Quick-Witted,  Self-Rehant  Frontiersmen — 
In  spite  of  Influential  Demagogues  the  Kentucky 
Conventions  and  Proceedings  Afforded  "a  Salutary 
Precedent" — Kentucky  Becomes  a  State — Tennessee 
as  the  State  of  "Franklin"— "The  Territory  South 
of  the  Ohio  River" — The  Irritating  Work  of  the 
Spanish — Wilkinson's  Speculations  and  His  Traitor- 
ous Contracts  with  the  Spanish — Other  Sordid 
Traitors. 


To  fully  comprehend  the  things  done  in  the  South- 
west— in  the  Kentucky  and  Tennessee  region  especial- 
ly— after  the  Revolution,  it  is  necessary  to  remember 
that  the  people  of  the  frontier  had  migrated  across 
the  mountains  to  improve  their  condition.     They  were, 

355 


A  History  of  the 

as  a  whole,  people  of  small  means,  who  had  come  to 
make  homes.  They  had  endured,  and  they  were  willing 
to  endure,  every  hardship  incident  to  wilderness  life  in 
order  to  get  on  in  the  world.  Only  determined  fortune 
seekers — men  who  would  not  be  easily  balked  when 
working  for  any  end — would  start  on  such  a  career, 
and  every  day  of  such  a  life  as  they  experienced  made 
them  the  more  determined  to  surmount  every  obstacle 
in  their  way.  They  were  not  only  the  most  determined 
men  in  the  world,  but  they  were  among  the  most  active 
minded.  A  man  who  has  to  learn  to  dodge  bullets  by 
jumping  when  he  sees  the  flash  of  the  powder,  learns 
also  to  make  decisions  quickly  on  all  other  matters  in 
which  he  has  a  personal  interest.  And  last  of  all  they 
were  entirely  self-reliant.  It  was  inevitable  that  these 
frontiersmen  should  "look  out  for  Number  i !"  when 
any  question  of  policy  arose,  and  should  "do  it  on  the 
jump." 

It  is  necessary  to  remember,  further,  that  these  fron- 
tiersmen had  become,  perforce,  accustomed  to  take  a 
cross-cut  route  to  order.  They  were  used  to  what  may 
be  called  Deckhard-rifle  justice.  It  had  been  necessary 
to  preserve  order  on  the  frontier  when  the  nearest 
courts  of  law  were  hundreds  of  miles  away,  and  the  in- 
tervening space  was  a  most  dangerous  wilderness.  In 
the  emergency  the  strong  men  of  the  new  community 
compelled  all  to  keep  order  and  deal  justly.  Where  pos- 
sible the  forms  of  the  law  were  observed,  but  when  an 
appeal  to  the  forms  of  law  threatened  to  defeat  justice, 
the  forms  of  the  law  were  swept  away.  They  compre- 
hended what  was  afterwards  called  "the  higher  law"— 
the  appeal  for  rights  which  the  forms  of  law  denied, 

356 


Mississippi   Valley. 

and  right  they  would  maintain  at  the  muzzles  of  their 
rifles. 

Before  this  people,  the  most  active-minded  and  self- 
reliant  people  in  the  world,  lay  the  Mississippi  and  its 
navigable  tributaries.  It  was  the  only  outlet  by  which 
to  convey  their  surplus  products  to  the  markets  of  the 
world.  They  had  a  "natural  right"  to  absolutely  free 
navigation  on  its  waters  to  the  high  seas.  In  their  be- 
lief (and  it  was  a  sincere  belief)  they  would  have  had 
a  natural  right  to  a  free  navigation  of  the  river  even 
had  a  cheaper  route  to  the  East  been  available.  They 
did  not  use  much  the  term  "higher  law,"  but  their 
orators  thundered  the  words  "Natural  Rights"  from 
every  stump-top  west  of  the  Alleghanies. 

But  at  the  mouth  of  the  Mississippi  the  Spaniards 
were  in  power,  and  they  were  determined,  not  only  to 
hold  the  mouth,  but  to  control  the  entire  stream  and  all 
the  land  east  of  it  except  certain  districts  already  settled 
when  the  Revolution  ended. 

People  who  learn  from  the  school  histories  that  the 
Battle  of  Yorktown  was  won  with  the  aid  of  French 
troops,  and  that  Lafayette  was  a  sincere  friend  of  the 
struggling  colonies,  think  of  the  French  King  of  that 
date  as  also  a  friend  of  the  Colonies.  But  only  a  little 
further  reading  is  necessary  to  learn  that  in  spite  of  the 
sympathy  of  the  French  people,  the  French  government 
(especially  Vergennes,  the  prime  Minister,)  was  ani- 
mated solely  by  a  desire  to  injure  the  British  in  what 
he  did  to  help  the  Americans.  While  he  was  glad  to 
free  the  British  colonies  from  the  British  yoke,  he  was 
determined  to  make  the  new  republic  a  vassal  to  France, 
or  to  disrupt  it,  and  secure  the  vassalage  of  a  part. 

357 


A  History  of  the 

When  in  1779  John  Jay  was  selected  to  go  to  Spain 
to  secure  a  recognition  of  the  United  States  Govern- 
ment, he  learned  immediately  after  arrival  that  he 
would  not  be  received  unless  the  sovereignty  of  Spain 
over  the  Mississippi  and  all  its  valley  (save  only  the 
parts  actually  settled  by  the  Americans)  were  first 
conceded.  To  support  this  claim  the  Spanish  sent  an  ex- 
pedition from  St.  Louis  on  January  2,  1781,  across  the 
country  to  a  small  post  on  the  St.  Joseph  River  (pro- 
JDably  near  the  site  of  La  Salle's  old  post).  This  post 
was  captured,  robbed  and  abandoned  in  haste.  On 
this  "conquest"  was  based  a  claim  to  the  Illinois  and 
Wabash  country. 

And  the  French  Government,  while  pretending 
friendship,  sent  a  special  envoy  (Luzerne)  to  the 
United  States,  who  supported  the  Spanish  claims. 

Weighed  down  by  the  enormous  debt  incurred  dur- 
ing the  war,  and  by  adversity  on  the  field  of  battle,  and 
by  the  relentless  pressure  of  adroit  envoys,  Congress 
yielded,  for  the  time,  the  exclusive  navigation  of  the 
]\Iississippi  to  Spain  (1781),  though  Spain  refused  to 
accept  that  alone ;  and  finally,  when  the  end  of  the  war 
was  at  hand,  Congress  instructed  the  American  peace 
commissioners  to  follow  French  dictation  in  fixing  the 
bounds  of  the  new  Nation. 

But  when  the  treaty  of  peace  was  made  the  instruc- 
tions of  Congress  were  disregarded  (Franklin  said  a 
man  might  as  well  sell  the  front  door  of  his  house  as 
for  the  United  States  to  abandon  the  navigation  of  the 
Mississippi),  and,  unknown  to  the  French  minister, 
concluded  the  agreement  which  extended  the  American 
territory  to  the  Mississippi  and  the  thirty-first  parallel. 

358 


Mississippi   Valley. 

If  the  British  refused  to  adhere  to  the  bargain,  as 
has  just  been  related,  it  was  certain  that  Spain,  with  her 
clutch  on  the  southwest  corner  of  the  American  terri- 
tory, would  ignore  that  bargain  altogether.  A  Spanish 
General  (Galvez)  had  taken  Natchez  from  the  British 
during  a  war  between  Spain  and  England ;  the  United 
States  had  never  had  possession  of  the  Natchez  terri- 
tory, the  Spanish  said,  and  they  held  firmly  to  the 
claim  they  had  presented  to  Jay  in  1779. 

Under  this  claim  the  navigation  of  the  Mississippi 
was  closed.  Only  by  bribing  Spanish  officials  could  a 
flatboat  cargo  be  taken  to  New  Orleans.  The  stirring 
settlers  west  of  the  Alleghanies  were  like  cattle  corralled 
in  a  gulch.  They  could  not  escape  over  the  mountains, 
and  the  Spanish  closed  the  natural  outlet.  Washington, 
whose  wisdom  becomes  more  manifest  as  the  years 
pass,  was  striving  to  create  a  way  of  transporting  the 
Western  surplus  to  the  East  by  improving  the  water- 
ways furnished  by  the  Ohio,  the  Monongahela,  and 
Potomac;  but  he  was  a  hundred  years  ahead  of  his 
time  in  his  urgency  for  good  roads  and  cheap  transpor- 
tation. The  people  west  of  the  Alleghanies  were  shut 
in.  No  markets  could  be  reached.  The  opening  of  the 
Mississippi — a  free  opportunity  to  go  to  market  with 
their  surplus  products — was  necessarily  the  chief  sub- 
ject of  thought  and  influence  west  of  the  Alleghanies. 
And  fortunate  it  has  been  for  the  Nation  that  this  was 
so. 

The  restlessness  of  the  Kentucky  people  was  first 
manifested  in  the  efforts  to  establish  a  state  Govern- 
ment. Conventions  were  held  from  time  to  time,  be- 
ginning on  December  2y,  1784,  for  this  purpose.    The 

359 


A  History  of  the 

proceedings  at  this  convention  formed  a  "salutary  pre- 
cedent," to  quote  the  words  of  Madison.  The  people 
fully  appreciated  their  shut-in  condition.  They  fully 
understood  their  natural  right  to  the  free  navigation  of 
the  Mississippi.  They  knew  very  well  that  Congress 
had  been  willing  to  make  bargains  with  Spain  detri- 
mental to  their  interests.  They  knew  that  many  people 
of  the  seaboard  regarded  them  as  communities  made 
up  of  men  little  if  any  better  than  desperadoes. 
They  knew,  further,  that  the  Union  was  a  dry  wall — a 
loose  conglomerate — that  New  York,  for  instance,  was 
at  one  time  at  the  point  of  war  with  both  Connecticut 
and  New  Jersey  because  of  New  York's  tariff  laws. 
There  were  demagogues  a  plenty  in  Kentucky  to  tell  the 
people  all  these  facts  and  to  exaggerate  the  evils  conse- 
quent thereon,  but  the  work  of  the  home-makers  in 
their  political  proceedings,  as  with  their  axes,  formed 
a  salutary  precedent. 

Chief  among  the  demagogues  was  General  James 
Wilkinson.  As  an  aid  to  General  Gates,  he  had  been 
guilty  of  entering  into  a  vile  conspiracy  against  Wash- 
ington, wholly  regardless  of  the  peril  of  the  country, 
but  he  was  now  a  citizen  of  Kentucky,  in  the  salt  and 
skin  trade,  and  looking  to  the  Mississippi  and  even  to 
the  Spanish  mines  west  of  it,  as  means  for  laying  "the 
foundations  of  opulence." 

Animated  solely  by  selfish  motives,  Wilkinson 
wished  to  set  up  an  independent  state  west  of  the  Alle- 
ghanies,  instead  of  a  member  of  the  Union.  He  soon 
found  that  this  was  going  further  than  the  people 
would  follow,  but,  hoping  to  create  trouble,  he  led  a 
convention  (August,   1785,)   to  demand  a  separation 

360 


Mississippi   Valley. 

from  Virginia  instead  of  petitioning  for  the  boon.  He 
was  able  to  exert  influence  in  this  matter  solely  by  his 
ability  to  exaggerate  the  evils  under  which  the  people 
labored,  but  he  failed  in  spite  of  his  influence.  Vir- 
ginia ignored  the  form  of  the  demand  and  yielded. 

Delays  due  to  the  war  with  the  Indians  north  of  the 
Ohio  prevented  a  prompt  consummation  of  the  work, 
and  Wilkinson  again  argued  for  complete  national  inde- 
pendence of  the  region.  It  was  during  the  days  when 
George  Rogers  Clark  and  Benjamin  Logan  were 
obliged  to  raid  the  Ohio  Indians  to  protect  the  Ken- 
tucky settlers,  and  he  naturally  found  listeners  who 
were  indignant  because  neither  the  Virginia  legislature 
nor  Congress  ( Congress  was  the  only  National  govern- 
ment then)  protected  the  region.  Moreover,  there  were 
Spanish  aggressions  on  the  south  (to  be  described  fur- 
ther on).  Nevertheless  the  work  of  the  conventions 
held  to  organize  a  state  continued  to  afford  a  "salutary 
precedent,"  and  in  February,  1791,  Congress  accepted 
Kentucky  as  a  member  of  the  Union. 

Meantime  the  people  of  the  Tennessee  region  had 
been  engaged  in  the  work  of  State  building,  also.  In 
June,  1784,  the  North  Carolina  legislature  ceded  all  the 
lands  west  of  the  mountains  to  Congress.  On  August 
27,,  delegates  from  the  settlements  of  the  Tennessee  met 
at  Jonesboro,  organized  a  convention  with  John  Sevier 
as  president,  and  then  (two-thirds  consenting),  voted 
"that  they  be  erected  at  once  into  an  independent  state," 
an  event  that  was  celebrated  with  "turbulent  joy"  by 
the  people  who  had  assembled  to  attend  the  proceedings. 
But  when  a  constitutional  convention  was  gathered,  in 
November,  the  North  Carolina  assembly  had  meantime 

361 


A  History  of  the 

rescinded  the  resolution  to  give  the  western  territory  to 
Congress,  and  public  opinion  had  so  far  changed  that 
the  convention  did  nothing. 

Late  in  1785,  however,  another  convention  was 
held.  These  delegates  believed  that  to  set  up  a  state 
government  regardless  of  the  legal  aspects  of  the  North 
Carolina  control  would  in  some  way  relieve  them  of 
their  troubles — would  open  the  Mississippi,  for  in- 
stance— and  they  adopted  a  constitution.  Concern- 
ing the  new  state,  so-called,  that  was  then  organized, 
two  facts  are  interesting :  the  so-called  state  was  named 
Franklin,  and  it  was  provided  that  every  office-holder 
must  be  a  member  of  the  Presbyterian  Church.  Doak, 
of  Princeton,  with  his  sack  full  of  books,  had  labored  to 
some  purpose. 

North  Carolina,  however,  having  rescinded  the  act 
giving  the  Tennessee  district  to  Congress,  once  more 
resumed  sway  over  the  Tennessee  settlements.  John 
Sevier  had  been  elected  Governor  of  the  "State"  of 
Franklin,  and  the  organization  of  districts  was  com- 
pleted under  his  energetic  administration,  but  North 
Carolina  had  also  a  complete  set  of  district  and  county 
officials  in  the  same  localities,  and  in  the  inevitable  clash 
the  old  State  party  won,  so  that  Sevier,  at  last  (1788), 
became  a  fugitive  from  the  recognized  officers  of  the 
law. 

Meantime  the  loose  conglomerate  called  the  United 
States  had  been  fusing  into  a  Nation.  On  June  21, 
1788,  New  Hampshire  adopted  the  Constitution,  mak- 
ing the  necessary  ninth  State,  and  five  days  later  Vir- 
ginia followed.  In  November,  1789,  North  Carolina 
joined  in,  and  then,  on  February  25,  1790,  it  once  more 

362 


Mississippi  Valley. 

deeded  the  land  west  of  the  mountains  to  the  Nation. 
On  April  2,  Congress  accepted  the  gift,  and  in  May 
established  a  form  of  government  for  "the  Territory 
south  of  the  River  Ohio,"  with  William  Blount,  of 
North  Carolina,  as  Governor. 

Blount  was,  on  the  whole,  the  man  for  the  place. 
He  was  assimilated  by  the  people,  so  to  speak.  The 
work  of  making  the  State  of  Tennessee  was  done  by 
a  convention  over  which  he  presided,  which  met  on  Jan- 
uary II,  1796,  and  published  the  state  constitution  on 
February  6.  It  is  worth  while  noting  that  James  Rob- 
ertson, who  had  helped  to  make  the  rifle  government 
of  Watauga  and  Nashville,  had  a  part  in  framing  this 
constitution,  and  that  Andrew  Jackson  was  also  a  mem- 
ber of  the  convention. 

The  work  of  the  Spanish  during  all  this  time  must 
now  have  consideration.  In  1784  Don  Estevan  Miro 
succeeded  Galvez  as  Governor  of  New  Orleans,  and  he 
was  as  urgent  as  his  King  could  wish  to  extend  the 
actual  power  of  Spain  over  the  unsettled  part  of  the 
Great  Valley  east  of  the  Mississippi. 

His  first  move  was  to  unite  with  Alexander  McGil- 
livray,  (a  half-breed  Creek,  whose  Scotch  father  had 
given  him  a  good  education),  in  the  formation  of  a 
league  of  Creeks,  Choctaws,  Cherokees  and  Chickasaws 
against  the  Americans.  In  May,  1784,  Miro,  at  Mobile 
and  Pensacola,  met  delegations  of  the  various  tribes, 
and  by  large  subsidies  of  supplies  started  them  on  a 
desultory  system  of  raiding  known  as  the  Oconee  war. 

Previous  to  this  time  the  Americans  had  opened  a 
trade  with  the  Spanish.  Flat-boats  had  been  built, 
loaded  with  cured  meats,  grain,  flour,  whiskey  and  furs, 

3^3 


A  History  of  the 

and  floated  to  New  Orleans.  Spanish  law  forbade  the 
trade,  but  Spanish  officials,  for  a  consideration,  encour- 
aged it  more  or  less,  though  every  speculating  boatman 
was  sure  to  be  robbed  sooner  or  later.  Miro  became 
active  in  the  system  of  robbing. 

While  Miro  urged  the  Indians  to  war  and  destroyed 
the  river  traffic  of  the  Americans,  Don  Diego  Gardoqui 
was  sent  by  the  Spanish  Government  to  negotiate  a 
treaty  with  Congress  by  which  Spain  was  to  control  the 
Mississippi  and  gain  other  advantages.  He  was  to 
offer  desirable  concessions  in  trade  with  Spain,  (con- 
cessions, however,  which  could  be  withdrawn  at  any 
time),  in  return  for  what  was  demanded  in  the  Great 
Valley.  The  seaport  merchants  were  eager  to  make 
the  treaty,  but  hearing  the  turmoil  west  of  the  moun- 
tains— the  talk  of  independence  by  such  men  as  Wil- 
kinson, and  the  just  complaints  of  the  producers — Con- 
gress refused  to  do  anything. 

Of  course  nothing  was  done — nothing  could  be 
done — to  open  the  Mississippi.  In  fact,  Spanish  traders 
began  to  spread  up  the  river,  and  thus  several  were 
found  at  Vincennes  when  Clark,  during  a  raid  on  the 
Indians  (August,  1786),  arrived  there.  One  of  the 
traders,  whose  goods  Clark  confiscated,  is  said  to  have 
lost  $10,000. 

Clark's  work  was  illegal,  but  it  was  not  unprovoked, 
for  many  an  American  had  been  ruined  by  Spanish  con- 
fiscations. Clark  contemplated  a  filibuster  expedition 
down  the  river,  at  least  as  far  as  Natchez,  at  this  time, 
but  nothing  was  done. 

While  Clark  contemplated  the  manful  if  illegal 
raid    on    Natchez,    Wilkinson    adopted    a    diplomatic 

364 


Mississippi   Valley. 

method  of  freeing  trade  on  the  Mississippi  that  was 
entirely  successful  for  himself.  Going  to  Natchez  (fall 
of  1786),  he  established  friendly  relations  with  Don 
Manuel  Gayoso  de  Lemos,  the  commandant.  The  next 
spring  he  loaded  a  fleet  of  flat-boats  with  "flour,  bacon, 
butter  and  tobacco,"  and  floating  down  the  rivers, 
reached  New  Orleans  in  June.  No  Spanish  officer 
molested  him,  and  he  sold  his  produce  at  a  price  that 
yielded  him  $35,000  profit,  after  the  usual  division  of 
spoils  with  the  officials.  How  great  was  the  price  that 
he  paid  for  immunity  may  be  inferred  by  the  fact  that 
3,000  barrels  of  flour  were  shipped  to  Philadelphia, 
consigned  to  Gardoqui,  the  profits  on  which  made  up 
his  share  of  the  plunder. 

But  it  was  not  by  bribery  alone  that  Wilkinson  suc- 
ceeded. The  threat  of  a  raid  on  Natchez  had  impressed 
the  Spanish  authorities.  They  knew  that  on  the  upper 
waters  lived  "a  Respectable  Body  of  Prime  Riflemen," 
numbering  more  than  20,000.  If  these  riflemen  were 
once  let  loose,  a  freshet  of  fire  would  come  down  the 
river,  and  sweep  the  Spanish  into  the  Gulf.  George 
Rogers  Clark,  at  Vincennes,  was  not  the  only  one  who 
had  threatened,  or  was  to  threaten,  such  a  revenge  for 
injuries  suff'ered,  and  Wilkinson  was  adroit  enough  to 
bribe  with  one  hand  while  with  the  other  he  delicately 
pointed  to  the  angry  hosts  of  Kentucky  and  Tennessee. 

Wilkinson  went  still  further,  but  it  is  a  shameful 
tale,  and  need  not  be  elaborated.  He  sold  himself  to 
the  Spanish.  Plans  for  delivering  the  settled,  as  well 
as  the  unsettled,  parts  of  the  Great  Valley  into  Spanish 
control  were  concerted  and  placed  on  paper.  These 
documents  are  yet  in  existence,  as  areletters  thatWilkin- 

365 


A  History  of  the 

son  wrote,  and  all  unite  to  show  his  treasonable  inten- 
tions. But  worse  is  yet  to  be  told.  To  further  the  plans 
for  rousing  the  frontiersmen  to  desperation,  Wilkinson 
advised  Miro  to  set  the  Southern  Indians  raiding  the 
home-makers  at  a  time  when  no  raids  were  to  be  ex- 
pected. To  further  his  own  sordid  schemes,  this  man 
strove  to  desolate  the  outer  line  of  homes,  and  to  spill 
the  blood  of  the  women  and  children  living  in  them. 

A  number  of  the  most  prominent  citizens  of  Ken- 
tucky became  involved  in  the  Spanish  conspiracy.  John 
Sevier,  when  his  State  of  Franklin  was  going  to  pieces, 
offered  to  throw  himself  "into  the  arms  of  His  Spanish 
Majesty."  James  Robertson  opened  negotiations  with 
Miro,  and  to  please  the  Spaniard,  named  a  district 
(what  was  later  a  county)  of  Tennessee  "Mero." 

One  can  believe  that  these  men  (as  they  afterwards 
asserted)  had  no  intention  of  becoming  loyal  subjects 
of  Spain.  They  had,  if  one  may  use  the  slang  of  to-day, 
surplus  products  to  burn ;  to  find  a  market  for  these  and 
so  realize  the  financial  prosperity  for  which  they  had 
endured  the  hardships  of  the  wilderness,  they  were 
ready  to  cut  loose  from  the  United  States  and  join 
Spain.  But  if  this  had  been  done  they  would  have 
served  Spain  as  the  Texans  served  Mexico. 

Wilkinson,  Judge  Henry  Innes  and  some  others 
were  sordid  traitors.  They  accepted  Spanish  money  as 
the  price  of  efforts  to  detach  the  territory  west  of  the 
mountains  from  the  United  States  for  the  benefit  of 
Spain.  But  more  than  half  of  those  who  talked  of 
uniting  with  Spain  were  men  who  were  looking  to  the 
ultimate  expansion  of  United  States  territory  by  fili- 
bustering methods. 

366 


Mississippi   Valley. 

In  1788  Col.  George  Morgan,  of  New  Jersey,  after 
vainly  trying  to  get  from  Congress  a  grant  of  land  for 
a  colony  near  Kaskaskia,  accepted  (October  3d)  a  grant 
of  12,000,000  acres  from  the  Spanish,  to  be  located 
around  New  Madrid.  Gardoqui  had  promoted  this 
scheme  to  draw  off  the  adventurous  from  the  American 
frontier.  Free  transportation  down  the  Ohio  and  aid 
in  building  houses  were  promised  to  the  emigrants,  but 
no  great  number  of  home-makers  went  across  the  river. 

It  was  at  this  period  (the  end  of  1788)  that  Col. 
John  Connolly  (he  who  precipitated  Lord  Dunmore's 
war)  came  to  Kentucky  to  see  what  could  be  done  to 
turn  the  discontented  frontiersmen  toward  Canada  for 
relief.  The  British  had  planned  to  send  10,000  men  to 
sweep  the  Spanish  from  the  Mississippi.  If  the  fron- 
tiersmen joined  in  this  movement  the  river  would 
quickly  be  theirs,  and  the  markets  of  the  world  would, 
under  the  British  flag,  be  open  to  them. 

Connolly  disclosed  the  entire  plan  to  Wilkinson. 
If  Wilkinson  had  unselfishly  desired  the  instant  pros- 
perity of  the  Mississippi  Valley,  regardless  of  the  rights 
of  the  Union,  as  he  professed,  here  was  a  golden  oppor- 
tunity. But  sincerity  and  unselfishness  were  in  no 
degree  qualities  of  Wilkinson's  character,  and  he  would 
have  nothing  to  do  with  a  people  by  nature  honest.  He 
saw  clearly  that  his  personal  interests  were  to  be  pro- 
moted best  by  adhering  to  the  intriguing  Spanish ;  and 
he  had  Connolly  mobbed  and  frightened  out  of  the 
country. 

As  commonly  told,  the  story  of  the  Kentucky  and 
Tennessee  region,  in  the  years  following  the  Revolu- 
tion,  is  doleful   reading.     The  men   most   frequently 

3^7 


A  History  of  the 

named  in  the  story  were  sordid  and  traitorous,  but  they 
were  not  fair  representatives  of  the  people  as  a  whole. 
They  were  to  the  whole  people  as  the  desperadoes  in 
some  frontier  towns  were  to  the  general  populations  of 
those  communities.  The  more  one  considers  the  gen- 
eral character  of  the  frontier  home-seekers  the  more  ad- 
mirable they  appear.  And  even  their  threats  and  ram- 
pant attitude,  under  the  restrictions  placed  on  the  com- 
merce of  the  Mississippi,  were,  in  the  long  run,  of  the 
utmost  benefit  to  the  Nation.  For  it  is  absolutely  cer- 
tain that  but  for  their  rampant  attitude  the  merchants 
of  the  coast  cities  would  have  sold  the  Mississippi  for 
a  Spanish  song.  And  how  their  rampant  attitude  af- 
fected the  Nation  when  the  French  came  once  more  to 
the  Mississippi  shall  be  told  in  the  final  chapter. 


^^ 


36S 


WILLIAM    CHARLES    COLE   CLAIBORNE. 

First  territorial  Governor,  as  also  the  first  Governor  of  the  State  of 

Louisana.  One  of  the  Commissioners  appointed  to  take 

possession  of  Louisiana  after  its  purchase. 


XXIII 

THE  NATION  GETS  ITS  OWN. 

Speculators  in  Georgia  Land  Start  the  Movement  for 
Ousting  the  Spanish — The  "Inevitable  and  Irresisti- 
ble Intrigue  of  the  Spanish  Nature"— Citizen  Genet 
and  His  Mississippi  Scheme — The  Southern  Indians 
Sent  against  the  Frontier — A  Satisfactory  Treaty 
Made,  but  the  Spanish  Were  Not  Willing  to  Yield 
the  Territory  then  until  a  Sufficient  Force  of  Sol- 
diers to  Take  It  Was  on  the  Ground. 

After  the  inauguration  of  Washington,  Guardoqui 
returned  to  Spain,  and  the  Spanish  intrigues  degen- 
erated into  a  struggle  to  retain  what  Spain  already  held 
— including  Natchez — within  the  American  boundaries, 
as  described  in  the  Treaty  with  Great  Britain.  Galvez 
had  conquered  Natchez  as  well  as  Mobile  from  the 
British.    No  one  disputed  Spain's  right  to  hold  Mobile, 

369 


A  History  of  the 

and  the  Spanish  naturally  argued  that  no  treaty  with 
Great  Britain  could  give  the  United  States  a  right  to 
Natchez.  In  fact  it  is  not  wholly  unreasonable  to  sup- 
pose that  when  Richard  Oswald,  the  British  commis- 
sioner in  the  treaty  of  1782-83,  assigned  the  31st  par- 
allel of  latitude  as  the  Southern  limit  of  the  United 
States  on  the  Mississippi,  he  had  in  mind  a  future  con- 
flict between  Spain  and  the  United  States  over  Natchez 
— a  conflict  that  might  in  some  way  benefit  British  in- 
terests. 

A  movement  that  looked  to  the  establishment  of 
American  control  in  the  Great  Valley  down  to  the  31st 
parallel  was  begun  in  Georgia,  the  legislature  of  which 
sold  (December,  1789)  large  tracts  of  the  land,  claimed 
west  of  the  mountains,  to  various  companies  of  specula- 
tors, who  were  required  to  defend  their  titles  at  their 
own  expense.  The  South  Carolina  company,  with  a 
grant  of  10,000,000  acres,  employed  one  Dr.  James 
O'Fallon  as  agent  and  manager.  O'Fallon  issued  cir- 
culars inviting  emigrants,  and  telling  that  the  plan  was 
to  erect  the  territory  to  be  acquired  into  an  Amer- 
ican State.  At  the  same  time  he  wrote  to  Governor 
Miro,  at  New  Orleans,  with  a  view,  as  he  pretended, 
of  making  the  grant  a  Spanish  colony.  Sevier  and 
Robertson  were  expected  to  join  in,  and  Wilkinson 
wrote  to  Miro  recommending  O'Fallon.  But  O'Fallon 
indiscreetly  said  he  should  have  10,000  of  the  "Prime 
Riflemen"  of  the  frontier  in  his  colony,  and  Miro  was 
unable  to  grow  enthusiastic  over  the  prospect  of  receiv- 
ing any  such  company  of  emigrants.  He  did  not  refuse 
to  receive  them,  but  the  scheme  failed  when  Washing- 
ton learned  its  object;  for  he  said  he  would  suppress 

Z70 


EDMUND    CHARLES    GENET. 
Better  known  as  "  Citizen  Genet."     From  a  painting^  by  Fouquet  in  1793. 


Mississippi   Valley. 

the  expedition  by  force,  and  everybody  concerned  knew 
that  Washington  was  a  square- jawed  man. 

After  the  admission  of  Kentucky  as  a  member  of 
the  Union,  (the  admission  was  to  date  from  June  i, 
1792),  the  loyalty  of  the  Kentuckians  was  to  be  no 
longer  doubted,  and  the  "Territory  south  of  the  Ohio" 
having  been  already  organized,  the  Spanish  Minister  to 
the  United  States  intimated  (December  6,  1791)  that 
Spain  was  ready  to  settle  all  disputes. 

But,  as  Winsor  says,  "it  was  not  long  before  the 
inevitable  and  irrepressible  intrigue  of  the  Spanish  na- 
ture began  to  show  itself."  Miro  was  transferred,  and 
Baron  Carondelet  was  brought  from  Guatamala  to  New 
Orleans.  Carondelet,  to  strengthen  the  Spanish  posi- 
tion, at  once  started  the  southern  Indians  raiding  the 
frontier,  as  Miro  had  done,  while  the  negotiations  for 
the  settlement  of  disputed  claims  were  allowed  to  drag 
on  in  the  poco  tiempo  and  nianana  manner  in  Spanish 
affairs. 

Then  the  shadow  of  the  French  Revolution  reached 
out  to  the  United  States.  "Citizen"  Genet  was  sent 
over  as  Minister.  He  arrived  on  April  8,  1793.  He 
brought  300  blank  army  and  navy  commissions  with 
him,  and  sent  an  agent  to  Kentucky  to  enlist  enough 
men  there  to  help  the  French  of  New  Orleans  throw 
off  the  Spanish  yoke.  George  Rogers  Clark  was  the 
chosen  head  of  this  proposed  expedition,  although  for 
years  he  had  been  a  common  drunkard.  But  how  much 
of  substance  there  was  to  the  intrigue  appears  from  the 
fact  that  Clark  received  only  $400  cash  for  the  expenses 
of  the  2,000  men  he  was  to  organize  and  conduct  down 
the  river. 

371 


A  History  of  the 

Carondelet,  however,  heard  that  a  milHon  dollars 
instead  of  $400  had  been  supplied,  and  in  terror  he 
appealed  to  Governor  Simcoe,  of  Canada,  for  help  in 
establishing  the  Spanish  power  in  the  Illinois  country. 
Simcoe  would  have  done  anything  to  injure  the  Ameri- 
cans, but  the  request  arrived  after  he  had  learned  that 
"Mad  Anthony"  Wayne  had  trained  1,000  men  to  load 
rifles  as  they  ran,  and  it  seemed  advisable  not  to  accede 
to  the  Spanish  appeal. 

However,  Washington  extinguished  the  plan.  Fort 
Massac  was  garrisoned  by  some  of  Wayne's  men,  and 
Clark's  $400  was  soon  dissipated.  Genet,  because  of  his 
insolence,  was  deprived  of  his  position  as  Minister,  (  he 
remained  as  a  private  citizen  in  this  country,  however) 
and  Jefferson,  who  had  been  a  blatant  supporter  of  the 
French  revolutionists,  was  eliminated  from  Washing- 
ton's cabinet. 

The  cool  and  righteous  course  of  Washington,  how- 
ever, roused  the  animosity  of  the  people  west  of  the 
mountains,  who  had  seen  in  Genet's  scheme  a  hope  of 
opening  the  Mississippi.  They  were  roused  still  further 
by  the  raiding  Creeks,  whom  Carondelet  was  then  sub- 
sidizing to  the  extent  of  $55,000  a  year,  to  keep  them 
on  the  warpath.  The  trouble  with  England  having 
been  cleared  away  by  Wayne's  victory  and  Jay's  treaty, 
the  time  for  a  settlement  of  the  Mississippi  question  had 
come. 

The  outlook,  judged  by  previous  work  in  that  line 
was  not  encouraging.  "John  Jay,  who  remained  long 
at  Madrid  during  the  Revolutionary  period,  failed  even 
to  obtain  formal  recognition  as  Minister."  The  attempt 
which,  as  Secretary  of  State,  he  afterward  made  to 

?>7^ 


THOMAS    PINCKNEY, 


He  arranjjed  a  treaty  with  Spain  in  1794,  which  secured  to  the 
United  States  the  free  navigation  of  the  Mississippi  River. 


Mississippi   Valley. 

negotiate  a  treaty  in  Philadelphia  with  Gardoqui,  the 
Spanish  Minister,  also  failed.  In  1790  Jefferson,  then 
Secretary  of  State,  instructed  Mr.  Carmichael,  the 
American  charge  at  Madrid,  to  intimate  to  Spain  that 
the  question  of  right  to  navigate  the  Mississippi  must  be 
settled.  But  this  led  to  no  result.  In  1791  Mr.  Car- 
michael and  Mr.  Short,  then  charge  at  Paris,  were  ap- 
pointed commissioners  to  negotiate  a  treaty  with  Spain, 
in  which  provisions  should  be  made  for  adjusting  boun- 
daries, for  recognizing  a  claim  to  the  right  of  navigat- 
ing the  INIississippi,  and  for  settling  the  conditions  of 
commercial  intercourse.  But  Spain,  shocked  at  the  ex- 
ecution of  Louis  XVI.,  was  turning  with  a  friendly 
spirit  toward  England.  The  relations  of  the  American 
Government  with  England  were  strained,  and  nothing 
was  effected  by  the  commission."  But  by  1794  Spain 
and  England  had  drifted  apart,  and  Jaudenes,  the  Span- 
ish Minister  to  the  United  States,  intimated  to  Ran- 
dolph, the  Secretary  of  State,  that  Spain  would  negoti- 
ate with  a  minister  of  proper  dignity  and  position" 
(James  B.  Angell). 

Accordingly,  in  the  fall  of  1794,  Thomas  Pinckney,. 
then  minister  to  England,  was  selected  to  negotiate  a 
treaty  with  Spain.  But  before  he  could  reach  Madrid, 
the  Georgia  Legislature  sold  30,000,000  acres  of  land 
lying  along  the  31st  parallel  to  a  company  of  specula- 
tors, and  this  act  (known  as  the  Yazoo  fraud)  encour- 
aged the  Spanish  to  make  one  more  effort  to  persuade 
the  Kentuckians  to  abandon  the  Union. 

Commandant  Gayoso,  of  Natchez,  went  North  as 
far  as  the  Chickasaw  Bluffs,  and  after  buying  a  strip  of 
land  of  the  Chickasaw  Indians,  built  a  fort  there.     It 

373 


A  History  of  the 

was  built  where  Memphis  now  stands.  Gayoso  then 
went  on  to  New  Madrid  and  opened  communications 
with  Wilkinson  and  others  who  had  been  in  the  in- 
trigue with  Miro.  But  before  anything  could  be  ac- 
complished by  Gayoso,  Pinckney  negotiated  a  treaty 
by  which  Spain  agreed  to  yield  all  the  territory  claimed 
by  the  United  States. 

Pinckney  had  reached  Madrid  on  June  28,  1795, 
but  "such  were  the  obstacles  and  prevarications  usually 
inherent  in  Spanish  diplomacy,"  (says  Winsor),  that 
Pinckney  was  kept  waiting  in  idleness  for  four  months. 
At  last,  as  the  end  of  October  drew  near,  Pinckney  de- 
manded his  passports  and  prepared  to  leave.  Then, 
according  to  the  custom  "usually  inherent  in  Spanish 
diplomacy,"  the  Spaniards  became  ready  for  active 
work,  and  a  satisfactory  treaty  was  written  and  signed 
in  three  days. 

The  treaty  was  ratified  by  the  United  States  Senate 
at  the  end  of  February,  1796,  and  was  proclaimed  on 
August  2  of  the  same  year. 

This  treaty  gave  the  United  States  the  bounds  ob- 
tained under  the  treaty  with  Great  Britain,  and  pro- 
vided for  a  joint  commission  to  meet  at  Natchez  and 
survey  the  line.  It  also  recognized  the  right  of  the 
Americans  to  navigate  the  Mississippi  freely,  and  it 
granted  them  the  right  to  deposit  in  New  Orleans  all 
goods  for  export  free  of  duty,  and  free  of  all  other 
charges,  save  a  reasonable  rent  for  warehouses. 

The  people  of  the  Great  Valley  now  hoped  for  a 
speedy  ending  of  their  troubles  on  the  rivers ;  but  even 
after  they  had  made  the  treaty  the  Spanish  were  yet  to 
shuffle  and  evade  to  the  utmost  limit  of  human  patience. 

374 


A  schoolboy's  map  of  the  united  states,  in  1796. 


Mississippi    I 'alley. 

Andrew  Ellicott  was  appointed  American  commis- 
sioner to  meet  the  Spanish  commissioner  and  survey  the 
boundary  hne  from  the  Mississippi  eastward.  He  left 
Philadelphia  September  i6,  1796.  He  was  joined  on 
the  Ohio  by  Lieutenant  Piercy  S.  Pope  and  a  squad  of 
men  to  serve  as  a  guard  in  the  wilderness.  On  ap- 
proaching New  Madrid,  Ellicott  was  stopped  by  the 
Commandant  and  a  letter  was  handed  him  wherein 
Governor  Carondelet  of  New  Orleans  ordered  him  to 
remain  at  New  Madrid  until  the  Spanish  forces  had 
been  removed  from  Natchez,  and  explained  that  low 
water  in  the  river  had  prevented  this  removal  thereto- 
fore. 

Ellicott,  of  course,  disregarded  the  order;  what  he 
thought  of  the  untruthful  explanation  may  be  imagined. 
At  the  Chickasaw  Bluffs  the  Spanish  commandant  fired 
a  cannon  across  the  course  of  the  flotilla,  and  when  it 
was  brought  to,  and  Ellicott  told  him  about  the  object 
of  the  expedition  and  the  treaty,  he  expressed  "wide- 
eyed  wonder,"  as  if  he  had  never  heard  of  such  a  mat- 
ter. 

Two  days  above  Natchez  a  messenger  met  Ellicott 
with  a  letter  wherein  Commandant  Gayoso  explained 
that  the  evacuation  had  not  occurred  for  want  of  suita- 
ble vessels.  He  requested  that  the  American  troops  re- 
main at  a  point  sixty  miles  up  the  river  lest  misunder- 
standings arise  between  Americans  and  Spaniards.  To 
this  Ellicott  agreed,  and  himself  reached  Natchez  on 
Febraury  24,  1797. 

To  follow  in  detail  the  shufflings,  the  deliberate  and 
oft-repeated  falsehoods,  and  the  insolent  demands  of 
Gayoso  and  Carondelet  in  the  days  following  Ellicott's 

375 


A  History  of  the 

arrival,  would  be  needlessly  wearisome  and  exasper- 
ating to  the  reader.  Any  one  wishing  the  details  can 
find  them  in  vol.  iii,  Waite's  "American  State  Pa- 
pers." It  is  enough  to  say  that  Gayoso,  with  profuse 
professions  of  friendship,  named  a  date  for  commen- 
cing the  survey.  At  the  same  time,  however,  he  set  his 
soldiers  at  work  strengthening  the  fort. 

On  seeing  the  men  at  work  on  the  fort,  Ellicott  sent 
for  his  soldiers.  Then  the  Spanish  appealed  to  the 
Chickasaws  and  Choctaws  to  attack  the  Americans, 
but  Ellicott  secured  their  neutrality.  A  story  that  the 
British  were  coming  down  from  Canada  to  attack  New 
Orleans  (Spain  was  at  war  with  England),  was  given 
as  a  reason  for  repairing  the  fort.  "The  British  must 
be  met  at  Natchez,  and  repulsed — como  siempre!"  said 
the  Spaniards. 

In  May,  1797,  the  Spanish  surveyor  arrived,  but 
Gayoso  refused  to  begin  the  survey ;  in  fact  he  went  on 
strengthening  the  fort.  And  at  that  the  citizens  of 
Natchez,  (nine-tenths  of  whom  were  Anglo-Saxons  in 
blood  and  despised  the  Spanish),  rose  up  and  took 
possession  of  the  town. 

With  a  committee  of  Americans  in  charge  of  Nat- 
chez, Ellicott  waited  the  movements  of  the  Spanish. 
Carondelet  was  transferred  and  Gayoso  thereafter  held 
such  power  as  remained  to  the  Spanish.  He  removed 
his  headquarters  to  New  Orleans  leaving  Don  Stephen 
Minor  in  command  of  the  fort  at  Natchez. 

The  patience  of  the  Administration  at  Washington 
during  all  this  time  was  extraordinary,  but  it  is  to  be  ex- 
plained in  part  by  the  aggressive  attitude  of  France. 
The  French  Government -was  then  sweeping  our  com- 

376 


JAMES    EDWARD    OGLETHORPE. 
Founder  of  the  State  of  Georgia  (1733). 


Mississippi   Valley. 

merce  from  the  West  Indies,  and  was  bringing  on  the 
actual  if  undeclared  war  that  gave  our  new  navy  its 
first  opportunity  to  show  its  quality.  A  war  with  one 
nation  at  a  time  was  all  that  the  Government  wished  to 
support. 

Nevertheless,  on  May  20,  1797,  General  Wilkinson, 
then  chief  of  the  army,  acting  under  instructions  from 
the  War  Department,  ordered  Capt.  Isaac  Guion  to  go 
with  a  sufficient  force  down  the  river  and  take  posses- 
sion of  the  various  posts  within  United  States  territory. 
Guion  had  fought  under  Montgomery  at  Quebec,  and 
under  Wayne  at  the  Battle  of  the  Fallen  Timbers.  He 
was  an  all-around  fighting  man,  and  his  reputation  was^ 
not  unknown  in  New  Orleans. 

"Events  now  moved  rapidly,  as  they  usually  do, 
when  Spanish  obstinacy  gives  way  to  fear,"  (Winsor). 
Orders  were  issued  for  the  evacuation  of  the  Chicka- 
saw Bluffs,  and  a  station  at  the  Walnut  Hills,  (Vicks- 
burg),  and  then,  on  March  30,  1798,  "under  cover  of 
the  night,"  Minor  and  his  men  sneaked  away  like  crim- 
inals. 

On  the  morning  of  March  31,  1798,  the  American 
flag  floated  in  the  breeze  above  the  fort  on  the  Natchez 
Bluffs — for  the  first  time. 

For  fifteen  years — from  1783  to  1798 — the  Ameri- 
can people  had  endured  the  buffetings  and  the  aggres- 
sions of  the  Governments  of  Great  Britain,  France  and 
Spain, — bullies  all  three,  who  were  willing  to  take  every 
advantage  of  the  struggling  young  Republic  as  long  as 
they  felt  themselves  powerful  enough  to  do  so  without 
danger.  Worse  yet,  the  Nation  had  been  obliged  to 
struggle  under  the  selfishness  and  ignorance  of  its  legis- 

377 


A  History  of  the 

lators,  and  (in  the  West),  under  the  schemes  of  sorv'.iJ 
traitors.  But  the  sober,  sound  sense  and  unyielding 
persistence  of  the  home-makers  prevailed,  and  on 
March  31,  1798,  the  Gridiron  Flag  covered  the  whole 
Nation. 


378 


ROBERT    R.    LIVINGSTON. 

The  cession  of  Louisiana  to  the  United  States  was  greatly 
aided,  if  not  accomplished  througli,  his  efforts. 


XXIV 


THE  GARDEN  OF  AMERICA  FOR  AMERICANS  ONLY. 


Organization  of  the  Mississippi  Territory — Throngs  of 
Emigrants  Flock  to  the  Region — The  Significant 
Story  of  Phihp  Nolan — Boone  as  a  Spanish  Don — 
The  Growth  of  Trade  at  New  Orleans — Napoleon 
Sees  the  Futility  of  His  Scheme  for  Recovering  the 
Original  French  Territory  in  America — He  Deter- 
mines to  Give  England  a  Maritime  Rival  and  Suc- 
ceeds— The  Treaty  Ratified — When  the  Gridiron 
Flag  First  Covered  the  Mighty  Valley  from  Brim  to 
Brim. 

Without  unnecessary  delay,  after  the  flag  floated 
over  Natchez,  Congress  organized  (April,  1798),  the 
Mississippi  Territory.  Winthrop  Sargent  reached 
Natchez,  charged  with  the  work  of  organization,  on 
August  6,  and  Wilkinson,  "as  general  of  the  American 

379 


A  History  of  the 

Army,  and  bearing  in  his  bosom  the  secrets  that  made 
his  prominence  a  blot  both  on  himself  and  his  govern- 
ment," came  on  August  26  with  a  military  force. 

Emigrants  followed  in  numbers.  In  a  letter  dated 
March  2,  1802,  Thomas  Jefferson  wrote  the  following: 

"Mr.  Randolph,  allured  by  the  immensely  profitable 
culture  of  cotton,  had  come  to  a  resolution  to  go  to  the 
Mississippi,  and  there  purchase  lands  and  establish  all 
his  negroes  in  that  culture." 

This  statement  is  of  interest  because  Mr.  Randolph 
was  a  type  of  the  class  of  emigrants  to  the  Mississippi 
Territory.  They  were  people  of  wealth  who  bought 
large  tracts  of  land.  The  development  of  the  Whitney 
cotton  gin,  (1793),  had  made  cotton  immensely  profit- 
able, and  to  that  crop  these  planters  devoted  themselves. 

In  the  watershed  of  the  Ohio,  the  men  whose  only 
capital  was  carried  in  their  heads,  found  their  Canaan, 
and  there  the  growth  of  population  was  unprecedented. 
A  thousand  flat  boats  passed  down  the  Ohio  in  1796, 
and  it  is  likely  that  they  carried  at  least  twenty  people 
each,  on  the  average.  A  regular  packet  service  was  es- 
tablished between  Pittsburgh  and  Cincinnati,  that  year. 
The  boat  was  fitted  with  musket  proof  cabins,  and  six 
one-pound  swivels  were  mounted  on  its  bulwarks.  It 
was  propelled  up  stream  with  oars  and  sails. 

When  Spain  as  well  as  England  had  been  thrown 
out  of  the  United  States  territory,  the  hurrying  crowds 
bound  west  increased  still  more  rapidly.  In  1790,  Ten- 
nessee had  a  population,  (U.  S.  Census  report),  of  35,- 
791;  in  1800  it  had  105,602.  Kentucky,  in  1790,  had 
73.077;  in  1800,  it  had  220,955.  And  the  stream  of 
immigrants  continued  increasing  in  volume  as  the  coun- 

380 


I 


Mississippi   Valley. 

try  filled  np.  This  stream  was,  in  fact,  a  human  fresh- 
et that  spread  westward  till  it  reached  the  Mississippi, 
and  there  ceased  to  flow.  A  paper  levee  stopped  its 
progress,  for  a  time,  but  it  did  not  cease  to  rise  against 
the  paper  levee.  By  a  treaty  the  splendid  wild  land 
across  the  river  belonged  to  Spain,  but  by  the  inexor- 
able law  of  race  progress  it  belonged  to  them  who 
would  use  it. 

In  1800  the  freshet  topped  the  levees.  Filibuster- 
ing expeditions  crossed  the  Mississppi  to  make  settle- 
ments on  Spanish  land.  They  were  of  the  class  that 
afterwards  settled  in  Texas  and  detached  that  state 
from  Mexico.  One  Phillip  Nolan  and  a  party  that 
made  a  settlement  on  the  Brazos  river,  in  the  fall  of 
1800,  passed  the  winter  in  catching  and  training  wild 
horses.  It  was  a  legitimate  business ;  they  were  at  that 
time  harming  no  one.  But  they  had  not  observed  any 
of  the  formalities  that  Spanish  law  and  custom  required 
of  immigrants,  and  in  March  a  Spanish  force,  300 
strong,  surrounded  their  shanties  at  daylight.  Nolan's 
party  numbered  less  than  thirty.  The  difference  in  the 
forces  is  significant.  It  shows  how  the  Spanish  re- 
garded "a  Respectable  Body  of  Prime  Riflemen." 
Nolan  was  killed,  and  the  others  were  captured  and  held 
prisoners  in  the  Mexican  settlements  for  some  years  af- 
terward. 

In  the  meantime  some  settlers  had  passed  over  to  the 
Spanish  side  of  the  great  river,  as  prevously  told,  with 
the  Spanish  consent — Daniel  Boone  among  the  rest. 
The  public  records  show  that  he  moved  to  "(upper) 
Louisiana  before  the  year  1798;  and,  on  the  24th  day  of 
January,  1798,  he  received  from  Zenon  Trudeau  a  con- 

381 


A  History  of  the 

cession  for  i,ooo  arpents  of  land,  situated  in  the  dis- 
trict of  Femme  Osage;  had  the  same  surveyed  on  the 
9th  of  January,  1800,  and  was  appointed  by  Don 
Charles  D.  Delassus,  (then  Lieutenant  Governor  of 
Upper  Louisiana),  Commandant  of  the  Femme  Osage 
District"  in  Missouri,  on  June  11. 

But  notwithstanding  this  kindly  reception  given  to 
Boone,  the  Spanish  were  exceedingly  jealous  of  these 
new  settlers.  They  told  each  immigrant  that  while  he 
might  hold  what  religious  views  he  pleased,  his  children 
must  become  Catholics  or  get  out  of  the  country;  and 
the  Bishop  at  New  Orleans  complained  bitterly  of  this 
small  measure  of  religious  tolerance.    . 

Naturally  but  few  of  the  home-makers  migrated  to 
the  Spanish  domain,  and  naturally,  too,  the  restless  and 
lawless  became  the  more  inclined  to  go  there  as  filibus- 
ters.   In  a  small  way  the  old  buccaneer  spirit  prevailed. 

During  all  this  time  the  commerce  of  the  Mississippi 
grew  with  the  population.  With  the  opening  of  trade, 
after  the  treaty  of  1795,  although  through  shipments 
were  allowed  free  of  duty,  thereafter,  the  custom  house 
receipts  of  New  Orleans,  in  the  ensuing  year,  were 
double  what  they  had  been  in  any  preceding  year. 

How  this  trade  increased  may  be  gathered  from  the 
following  statement,  quoted  from  Cable's  sketch  of  New 
Orleans  in  the  U.  S.  Census  report  for  1880: 

"In  1790  the  port  of  New  Orleans  was  neither  open 
nor  closed.  Commerce  was  possible  but  dangerous, 
subject  to  the  corrupt  caprices  of  Spanish  commandants 
and  customs  officers,  and  full  exasperating  uncertain- 
ties. 

"In  1802,  158  Americans,  104  Spaniards  and  3 
382 


Mississippi   Valley. 

French  merchantmen,  [ships  of  the  sea],  in  all  31,241 
register  tons,  sailed  from  her  harbor  loaded.  *  *  * 
34,000  bales  of  cotton;  4,500  hogsheads  of  sugar;  800 
casks — equivalent  to  2,000  barrels — of  molasses;  rice, 
peltries,  indigo,  lumber  and  sundries  to  the  value  of 
$500,000;  50,000  barrels  of  flour ;  3,000  barrels  of  beef 
and  pork;  2,000  hogsheads  of  tobacco,  and  smaller 
quantities  of  corn,  butter,  hams,  meal,  lard,  staves  and 
cordage  passed  across  the  already  famous  levee." 

But  while  the  merchants  west  of  the  Alleghanies 
were  growing  rich  and  the  home-builders  were  not  only 
adding  to  the  comforts  of  their  rude  houses,  but  were 
reaching  a  point  where  luxuries  were  not  unknown,  a 
rumor  that  Spain  had  sold  the  Louisiana  Territory  to 
France  spread,  (1801),  over  the  Great  Valley.  Ru- 
mors to  this  effect  had  been  heard  as  early  as  1797 — 
unfounded  rumors  that  soon  died  out — but  this  time 
the  rumor  persisted.  And  as  it  gained  credence  the 
people  became  wild  with  indignation  and  anger. 

To  fully  appreciate  the  excitement  thus  caused  one 
must  recall  the  course  of  events  in  France  during  the 
years  that  had  recently  passed.  For,  beginning  in 
1794,  the  leaders  of  the  mob  that  had  ruled  France, 
during  her  great  revolution,  in  order  to  coerce  the  Uni- 
ted States  into  joining  France  in  her  wars  with  the 
other  nations  of  Europe,  and  in  order  to  enrich  them- 
selves, had  sent  out  warships,  privateers  and  armed 
ships  without  commissions,  to  prey  on  American  com- 
merce. These  pirates  had  swept  American  shipping 
almost  entirely  off  the  high  seas.  And  the  story  of  the 
"French  Spoliations"  was  as  well  known  in  the  Miss- 
issippi as  in  the  coast  cities. 

383 


A  History  of  the 

Further  than  that  was  the  fact  that  the  French  revo- 
lution had  evolved  Napoleon,  and  he  had  become  the 
ruler  of  France  under  the  title  of  First  Consul,  (No- 
vember lo,  1799).  Fully  realizing  that  to  add  to  the 
glory  of  France  was  to  strengthen  his  own  power,  Na- 
poleon had  reached  out  to  grasp  the  colonial  possessions 
that  had  been  lost  before  his  day.  Toussainte  I'Over- 
ture  had  set  up  a  republic  in  San  Domingo,  and  had 
maintained  it  by  force  of  arms.  Late  in  1801  Napo- 
leon sent  an  army  to  resubjugate  San  Domingo  and  re- 
duce the  negroes  to  slavery  once  more.  Le  Clerc,  Na- 
poleon's brother-in-law,  commanded  the  expedition.  In 
San  Domingo,  Le  Clerc  treated  the  American  mer- 
chants much  as  he  treated  the  fighting  natives ;  he  con- 
fiscated their  property  and  thrust  them  into  prison  with- 
out trial  or  means  of  redress.  The  story  of  Le  Clerc's 
outrages  followed  the  rumors  of  the  French  acquisi- 
tion of  Louisiana  to  the  Mississippi  Valley. 

The  French  who  had  by  sheer  piracy  ruined  the 
American  commerce  on  the  high  seas,  and  had  robbed 
and  maltreated  the  Americans  in  San  Domingo,  were 
coming  to  take  possession  of  Louisiana — of  New  Or- 
leans and  the  mouth  of  the  Mississippi !  There  was 
ample  cause  for  excitement  west  of  the  Alleghanies. 

As  to  the  facts  at  the  bottom  of  the  rumors  it  ap- 
pears that  it  was  in  1800  that  Napoleon  first  determined 
to  acquire  Louisiana,  and  that  in  August  of  that  year 
he  sent  his  confidential  friend  Alexandre  Berthier  as 
minister  to  Madrid.  Berthier  negotiated  a  treaty,  dated 
October  i,  1800,  by  which  France  was  to  take  Louisiana 
and  Florida,  and  give  in  exchange  "a  kingdom  of  at 
least  a  million  people  made  up  of  French  conquests  in 

384 


THOMAS    JEFFKKSON. 


Mississippi   Valley. 

the  north  of  Italy,  over  which  was  to  be  set  the  Duke 
of  Parma,"  son-in-law  of  the  Spanish  king,  (Hosmer). 

This  treaty  was  not  ratified  by  the  king  of  Spain, 
but  one  negotiated  by  Lucien  Bonaparte  and  dated 
March  21,  1801,  was  ratified.  It  gave  Louisiana  to  the 
French  in  exchange  for  Tuscany,  over  which  the  Duke 
of  Parma  was  to  reign  as  king.  Both  treaties  were 
negotiated  at  San  Ildefonso,  where  the  Spanish  king 
lived,  and  the  treaty  of  cession  is  known  by  the  name  of 
the  royal  residence. 

At  the  time  the  last  treaty  was  made,  and  while  the 
rumors  of  it  were  agitating  the  people  west  of  the 
Alleghanies,  Thomas  Jefferson  was  President  of  the 
United  States.  Jefferson,  if  not  the  originator,  was  at 
least  the  most  conspicuous  advocate  of  the  porcupine 
policy  of  dealing  with  foreign  enemies.  In  order  to 
command  the  respect  of  European  nations  and  to  pro- 
tect American  commerce  in  foreign  waters  Jefferson 
built  scores  of  gunboats  that  were  manoeuvred  with 
oars,  and  confessedly  fit  for  use  only  in  our  harbors. 
Moreover,  he  had  idealized  if  he  had  not  idolized  the 
French.  He  had  spoken  of  the  excitement  raised  in  the 
United  States  when  "Citizen"  Genet  was  distributing 
piratical  commissions  from  Charleston  to  Philadelphia 
as  a  revival  of  the  "spirit  of  1776." 

But  Jefferson  was  a  politician  first  of  all.  Foster, 
in  his  "Century  of  American  Diplomacy,"  says  he  was 
the  greatest  politician  the  Nation  has  yet  produced. 
And  Jefferson's  most  enthusiastic  supporters  were 
found  in  the  INIississippi  Valley.  Franklin  had  said 
that  a  man  might  as  well  sell  his  front  door  as  for  the 
United  States  to  give  up  the  right  of  the  free  navigation 

385 


A  History  of  the 

of  the  Mississippi,  and  Jefferson  understood  very  well 
that  the  western  clamor  over  the  supposed  French  ac- 
quisition of  Louisiana  was  not  empty  declamation; 
but  neither  he  nor  any  one  else  then  saw  where  that 
oratorical  tornado  would  carry  the  country. 

What  Jefferson  did  on  hearing  the  clamor  was  to 
instruct  our  Ministers  at  Paris,  London  and  Madrid 
to  do  all  they  could  to  prevent  the  transfer.  Eventually 
the  rumors  said  that  Spain  had  already  ceded  the  ter- 
ritory to  France,  and  at  that  Jefferson,  in  a  letter  to 
Robert  R.  Livingston,  American  minister  to  France, 
dated  April  i8,  1802,  said: 

"There  is  on  the  globe  one  single  spot  the  possessor 
of  which  is  our  natural  and  habitual  enemy.  It  is 
New  Orleans.  *  *  *  France  placing  herself  at  that 
door,  assumes  to  us  the  attitude  of  defiance.  *  *  * 
Circumstances  render  it  impossible  that  France  and 
the  United  States  can  continue  long  friends,  when 
they  meet  in  so  irritable  a  position.  The  day  that 
France  takes  possession  of  New  Orleans  *  *  *  we 
must  marry  ourselves  to  the  British  fleet  and  nation. 
We  must  turn  all  our  attentions  to  a  maritime  force." 

And  then  to  much  talk  about  friendly  relations  he 
added  the  unmistakable  statement  that  "it  is  not  from 
a  fear  of  France  that  we  deprecate  this  measure  pro- 
posed by  her." 

Madison,  Jefferson's  secretary  of  State,  in  a  letter 
of  instructions  to  Livingston,  said :  "The  United  States 
would  take  the  most  vigorous  measures,  even  though 
they  should  involve  war,  to  avert  such  a  calamity"  as 
the  cession  of  Louisiana  to  France. 

But  Jefferson  did  not  really  mean  it.  At  heart  he 
386 


Mississippi    Valley. 

had  no  intention  of  fighting  to  keep  the  IMississippi. 
In  October,  in  spite  of  the  manly  words  quoted,  he  told 
Livingston  that  the  French  occupation  of  Louisiana 
was  not  "important  enough  to  risk  a  breach  of  peace." 
He  had  talked  and  written  in  brave  words  merely 
to  humor  the  people;  his  words  were  not  sincere.  If 
the  simile  may  be  allowed,  Jefferson  felt  himself  in 
charge  of  a  growing  kid  on  which  the  British  lion, 
the  French  wolf  and  the  Spanish  coyote  were  looking 
with  hungry  eyes.  He  supposed  that  if  only  this  kid 
could  be  allowed  to  feed  peaceably  in  the  pastures  of 
the  world  until  it  was  as  big  and  fat — especially  as 
fat — as  a  kid  could  become,  it  would  then  be  entirely 
safe  from  the  attacks  of  the  lion,  the  wolf  and  the 
coyote.  The  quantity  of  the  fat  was  to  protect  it; 
and  in  order  that  fat  might  be  accumulated  as  fast 
as  possible  the  grozvth  of  horns  must  be  prevented.  A 
hornless  goat,  rolling  fat,  was  literally  Jefferson's  ideal 
representative  of  a  great  nation.  He  did  say  to  the 
British  minister  that  if  we  were  compelled  to  draw  the 
sword  we  would  "throw  away  the  scabbard,"  but  he 
did  not  mean  to  draw  the  sword.  A  nation  whose 
every  effort  at  home  should  be  devoted  to  accumulation 
of  "material  resources,"  and  whose  foreign  policy 
should  be  regulated  by  those  able  to  "palliate  and  en- 
dure," and,  if  the  full  truth  be  told,  those  who  could 
purchase  favors, — that  was  the  Jefferson  ideal.  For- 
tunately the  Nation  was  able  to  survive  the  fierce  on- 
slaughts that  Jefferson's  hornless  policy  made  possible 
during  the  first  ten  years  of  the  Nineteenth  Century, 
and  different  ideals  now  prevail. 

In  the  course  of  May,  1802,  authentic  information 

387 


A  History  of  the 

reached  the  United  States  that  Spain  had  sold  out  to 
France.  Consequently,  during  the  summer  of  1802, 
Livingston  was  kept  busy  trying  to  purchase  New  Or- 
leans and  the  two  Floridas,  which,  it  was  rumored, 
had  also  been  transferred  to  France,  but  he  could  make 
no  progress  in  his  negotiations.  Napoleon  had  ob- 
tained peace  at  the  treaty  of  Amiens,  March  25, 
1802,  and  was  contemplating  the  recovery  of  all  the 
ancient  French  rights  in  America.  He  supposed  that 
he  could  readily  conquer  all  the  Mississippi  Valley,  if 
not  Canada,  and  he  ordered  an  army  of  10,000  men, 
under  General  Bernadotte,  to  prepare  to  sail  for  New 
Orleans.  General  Victor  was  afterwards  (August, 
1802)  substituted  for  Bernadotte,  and  the  preparations 
were  pressed  with  enthusiasm  during  the  fall  follow- 
ing Victor's  appointment. 

In  order  to  deceive  the  Americans  Napoleon  an- 
nounced that  Victor  was  going  to  reinforce  the  French 
army  in  San  Domingo,  but  the  truth  of  the  matter  be- 
came very  well  known  throughout  the  United  States. 
The  excitement  and  indignation  caused  by  this  knowl- 
edge were  soon  to  be  increased,  however,  to  a  far  higher 
pitch.  On  October  16,  1802,  in  the  midst  of  the  most 
prosperous  shipping  season  the  merchants  of  the  Miss- 
issippi Valley  had  ever  known,  the  Spanish  Intendant 
at  New  Orleans,  Don  Juan  Venturo  Morales,  ordered 
that  the  American  right  of  deposit  should  thence- 
forth cease.  Foreign  commerce,  save  in  Spanish  ships 
only,  was  to  be  stopped — this  in  the  face  of  the  fact 
that  a  free  export  trade  had  been  allowed  for  seven 
years  since  the  signing  of  the  treaty  permitting  such 
commerce. 

388 


Mississippi   Valley. 

As  the  report  of  the  order  of  Morales,  in  violation 
of  the  treaty,  spread  up  the  Great  Valley,  the  people 
almost  to  a  man  were  found  ready  to  grasp  their  rifles, 
three  feet  and  six  inches  long,  and  embark  for  New  Or- 
leans. There  was  talk  of  raising  enough  men  in  the 
Mississippi  Territory  alone  to  capture  New  Orleans 
immediately,  and  it  could  have  been  done  easily,  had 
the  right  leader  appeared. 

It  was  natural  that  the  Americans  should  suppose 
that  Napoleon  had  dictated  the  Morales  prohibition  of 
commerce  and  the  American  right  of  deposit  at  New 
Orleans.  In  this  it  appears  they  were  in  error  as  to  the 
fact,  although  as  to  the  feeling  of  Napoleon  they  were 
entirely  right.  Morales  had  acted  on  his  own  impulses. 
The  Governor  of  New  Orleans,  (Salcedo  Gayoso  had 
died  after  a  drunken  spree  with  Gen.  Wilkinson),  op- 
posed the  order.  The  Spanish  minister  to  the  United 
States  opposed  it  with  anger.  But  under  Spanish  law, 
Morales  could  prevail  until  an  order  came  from  the 
Spanish  King. 

With  this  new  aggression  to  urge  him  on,  Jefferson 
still  baulked  at  the  thought  of  securing  the  rights  of 
the  Nation  by  the  use  of  force.  He  w^as  determined 
not  to  use  force.  His  message  to  Congress,  read  De- 
cember 15,  1802,  "discussed  everything  except  the 
danger  which  engrossed  men's  minds."  (Henry 
Adams's  "History  of  the  United  States").  "No 
change"  was  "deemed  necessary  in  our  military  es- 
tablishment," and  as  for  the  navy  the  chief  item  of 
new  expense  recommended  was  a  "dock  within  which 
our  present  vessels  may  be  laid  up  dry  and  under 
cover  from  the  sun."     In  a  special  message  to  Con- 

389 


A  History  of  the 

gress  on  December  22,  1802,  he  spoke  of  Morales's 
act  as  "the  irregular  proceeding  at  New  Orleans,"  and 
said  he  had  not  lost  "a  moment  in  causing  every  step 
to  be  taken  which  the  occasion  claimed."  On  January 
5,  1803,  he  transmitted  to  the  house,  "a  statement  of 
the  militia"  of  the  various  states,  (a  showing  of  the 
mailed  fist,  that!),  and  then  on  the  nth,  in  a  special 
message,  he  nominated  James  Monroe  as  min- 
ister extraordinary,  to  act  "jointly  or  either  on 
the  death  of  the  other,"  with  Livingston,  in  or- 
der to  "enter  into  a  treaty  or  convention  with  the 
First  Consul  of  France,"  for  the  purchase  of  New  Or- 
leans and  the  French  territory  east  of  the  Mississippi, 
The  nomination  was  promptly  confirmed. 

As  Henry  Adams  has  pointed  out,  Monroe  was  sent 
on  this  special  mission,  "not  so  much  to  purchase  New 
Orleans,  as  to  restore  political  quiet  at  home."  In  his 
letter  asking  Monroe  to  accept  the  mission,  Jefferson 
said: 

"The  agitation  of  the  public  mind  on  occasion  of 
the  late  suspension  of  our  right  of  deposit  at  New  Or- 
leans is  extreme.  In  the  western  country  it  is  natural 
and  grounded  on  honest  motives.  In  the  Federalists 
generally,  and  especially  those  of  Congress,  the  ob- 
ject is  to  force  us  into  war  if  possible,  in  order  to  de- 
range our  finances;  or  if  this  cannot  be  done,  to  detach 
the  western  country  to  them  as  their  best  friends,  and 
]thus  get  into  power." 

And  when  the  nomination  had  been  confirmed  Jef- 
ferson again  wrote  to  say  that  "the  measure  has  si- 
lenced the  Federalists  here." 

To  silence  the  Federalists  was  the  thought  upper- 
390 


JAMKS    MONROE. 

The  oritrinal  portrait  by  Vanderlyn,  from  which  this  was  engraved 
by  Duraiid,  can  be  seen  in  the  City  Hall,  New  York. 


Mississippi   Valley. 

most  in  Jefferson's  mind  in  this  crisis  brought  on  by- 
foreign  aggression,  and  the  next  thought  was  to  "palH- 
ate  and  endure"  (letter  to  Dr.  Priestley),  the  aggres- 
sion in  such  a  fashion  as  to  soothe  his  own  party. 

Meantime,  however.  Napoleon's  hopes  of  conquest 
in  America  had  vanished.  Barbe  Marbois,  one  of 
Napoleon's  ministers,  had  pointed  out  that  to  occupy 
New  Orleans  was  to  drive  the  United  States  to  declare 
war  against  France  at  the  first  shot  of  a  gun  in  Eu- 
rope, and  he  was  ready  to  ask,  as  Jefferson  had  asked, 
will  "a  short  lived  possession"  of  New  Orleans  be  an 
equivalent  to  France  "for  the  transfer  of  such  a  weight 
into  the  scales  of  her  enemy?" 

Moreover,  Napoleon's  agents  in  the  United  States 
had  repeatedly  written  him  that  it  would  be  impossible 
to  accomplish  his  purpose.  The  agents  knew  the  num- 
ber and  the  quality  of  the  "Prime  Riflemen"  of  the 
west.  They  had  doubtless  heard  of  the  men  whom 
"Mad"  Anthony  Wayne  trained  to  load  rifles  while 
charging  the  enemy,  and  if  not,  they  knew  that  the 
frontiersmen  always  shot  to  kill.  Pinchon,  the  French 
charge,  wrote  to  Talleyrand  to  say  that  "however 
timid  Mr.  Jefferson  may  be,  I  find  [among  the  people] 
in  general  a  bad  temper  as  regards  us;  and  I  cannot 
help  seeing  that  there  is  a  tendency  toward  adopting 
an  irrevocably  hostile  system."  It  was  clearly  seen  by 
the  Frenchmen  in  America  that  it  would  be  an 
easy  task  to  raise  an  army  of  30,000  skilled  riflemen, 
west  of  the  Alleghanies,  embark  them  on  boats  which 
they  were  accustomed  to  handle,  and  send  them,  hot 
for  a  fight,  dowti  the  river.  Napoleon's  men,  with  all 
their  European  experience,  would  find  a  different  kind 

391 


A  History  of  the 

of  warfare  when,  after  landing  in  New  Orleans,  they 
tried  to  push  up  the  river  in  boats,  or  through  the  road- 
less forests  and  lowlands  on  either  border. 

To  such  arguments  as  this,  Napoleon,  as  a  states- 
man, was  obliged  to  give  heed.  He  saw  that  any 
force  that  he  could  send  to  New  Orleans  would  be 
wholly  lost  to  his  uses  in  Europe,  and  it  would  ac- 
complish nothing  in  America.  He  saw  further  that 
the  supremacy  of  the  British  naval  power  on  the  high 
seas  would  prevent  his  reinforcing  New  Orleans,  in 
time  of  war — would  even  prevent  his  rescuing  the 
garrison  there  from  certain  defeat.  He  believed  that 
in  case  of  war  with  England,  Louisiana  would  become 
a  British  colony,  and  a  war  with  England  was  now 
seen  to  be  at  hand.  These  considerations  prevailed. 
It  is  a  proof  of  the  wisdom  of  Napoleon  that  they  did 
prevail.    To  his  counsellors  he  said : 

"They  [the  British],  shall  not  have  the  Mississippi 
which  they  covet.  The  conquest  of  Louisiana  would 
be  easy,  if  they  only  took  the  trouble  to  make  a  descent 
there.  I  have  not  a  moment  to  lose  in  putting  it  out  of 
their  reach.  *  *  *  I  think  of  ceding  it  to  the  United 
States.  I  can  scarcely  say  that  I  cede  it  to  them,  for 
it  is  not  yet  in  our  possession.  If,  however,  I  leave 
the  least  time  to  our  enemies,  I  shall  only  transmit  an 
empty  title  to  those  republicans  whose  friendship  I 
seek.  They  only  ask  of  me  one  town  in  Louisiana, 
but  I  already  consider  the  colony  as  entirely  lost,  and 
it  appears  to  me  that  in  the  hands  of  their  growing 
power,  it  will  be  more  useful  to  the  policy  and  even  to 
the  commerce  of  France  than  if  I  should  attempt  to 
keep  it." 

392 


Mississippi   Valley. 

When  objections  were  urged  he  continued : 

"Irresolution  and  dehberation  are  no  longer  in 
season.  I  renounce  Louisiana.  It  is  not  only  New 
Orleans  that  I  will  cede,  it  is  the  whole  colony  with- 
out any  reservation.  *  *  *  To  attempt  obstinately  to 
retain  it  would  be  folly.  I  direct  you  to  negotiate  this 
affair  with  the  envoys  of  the  United  States." 

And  when  the  matter  had  been  fully  determined 
he  said : 

"This  accession  of  territory  strengthens  forever 
the  power  of  the  United  States,  and  /  haz'c  just  given 
to  England  a  maritime  rival  that  zuill  sooner  or  later 
humble  her  pride." 

With  American  capitalists  in  control  of  the  leading 
lines  of  transatlantic  steamships  in  this  present  year 
of  1903,  the  last  statement  is  of  interest.  But  it  is 
worth  noting  here  that  one  of  Napoleon's  ideas  in  this 
matter  was  by  no  means  well  founded.  He  supposed, 
as  he  said,  that  if  he  tried  to  occupy  the  Louisiana 
territory  the  British  would  promptly  take  it  away  from 
him.  Curiously  enough  nearly  all  American  historians 
have  agreed  w^ith  him.  But  we  will  believe  that  as 
soon  as  Napoleon's  army  had  sailed  for  New  Orleans, 
the  "Prime  Riflemen"  of  the  West  would  have  gone 
aboard  their  fiat  boats,  and  in  an  irresistible  tide  would 
have  swept  all  foreign  power  from  the  Great  Valley 
before  either  French  or  British  could  have  done  so 
much  as  to  make  a  landing.  Livingston,  who  had 
reverence  for  the  eagle,  not  the  porcupine,  said :  "Only 
force  can  give  us  New  Orleans.  We  must  employ 
force.  Let  us  first  get  possession  of  the  country  and 
negotiate  afterwards." 

393 


A  History  of  the 

He  understood  the  beneficent  effect  of  showing  the 
mailed  fist  at  the  right  time  in  some  kinds  of  diplo- 
matic proceedings.  It  was  not  necessary  to  do  that  on 
this  occasion,  but  if  the  necessity  had  arisen,  it  would 
have  been  done.  Let  no  one  think  that  Great  Britain 
would  have  forestalled  Napoleon  at  New  Orleans,  even 
if  the  "timid"  Mr.  Jefferson  was  President. 

Barbe  Marbois  was  commanded  to  conduct  the 
negotiations  with  Livingston  and  Monroe.  He  was 
well  acquainted  personally  with  both  of  them,  personal 
regard  smoothed  the  way,  and  the  negotiations  were 
conducted  with  unparalleled  expedition.  Napoleon  at 
first  demanded  a  price  that  seemed  enormous,  but  he 
modified  his  demands  to  a  point  where  the  conditions 
were  written  to  the  satisfaction  of  both  parties.  Liv- 
ingston and  Monroe  felt  that  they  were  stretching 
their  powers  to  the  utmost  in  buying  the  whole  terri- 
tory, but  there  was  (fortunately),  no  time  for  consul- 
tation with  Jefferson,  and  a  treaty,  (dated  April  30, 
1803,  though  concluded  in  part  as  late  as  May  9),  was 
signed  whereby: 

"The  First  Consul  of  France,  desiring  to  give  to 
the  United  States  a  strong  proof  of  his  friendship,  doth 
hereby  cede  to  the  United  States,  in  the  name  of  the 
French  Republic,  forever  and  in  full  sovereignty  the 
said  territory"  of  Louisiana.  For  this  broad  territory 
the  United  States  paid  $11,250,000  in  six  per  cent, 
bonds,  and  assumed  a  debt  of  $3,750,000  due  Amer- 
ican citizens  from  France,  or  $15,000,000  all  told. 

When  Livingston  had  signed  this  document,  (and 
his  name  was  the  first  appended  to  it),  he  arose,  shook 
hands  with  Marbois  and  Monroe,  and  said : 

394 


Mississippi   Valley. 

"We  have  lived  long,  but  this  is  the  noblest  work 
of  our  lives." 

The  papers  reached  Washington  on  July  14,  1803. 
The  treaty  attracted  the  widest  attention.  No  one  had 
foreseen  such  an  outcome  of  the  negotiations.  A  great 
number  of  the  people  supposed  that  the  Nation  had  no 
power  under  the  Constitution  to  annex  foreign  terri- 
tory. Others  were  opposed  to  the  policy  of  enlarging 
the  territory  of  the  Nation.  Jefferson  himself  fully 
believed  Congress  had  no  power  to  annex  the  purchased 
territory,  and  favored  passing  an  amendment  to  the 
Constitution  to  permit  it.  He  thought,  too,  that  the 
land  west  of  the  Mississippi  would  be  useless  save  as 
a  refuge  for  the  Indians  then  living  in  the  East.  Mon- 
roe, fearing  that  he  had  paid  too  much  for  the  cession, 
suggested  the  sale  of  "the  territory  west  of  the  Miss- 
issippi *  *  *  to  some  power  of  Europe  whose  vicin- 
ity we  should  not  fear." 

But  when  a  letter  was  received  from  Livingston 
saying  that  Napoleon  might  yet  undo  the  work  al- 
ready accomplished,  and  when  this  was  followed  by 
another  letter  saying  "I  most  earnestly  press  you  to 
get  the  ratification  as  soon  as  possible,"  Jefferson  called 
a  special  session  of  Congress.  He  had  written  to  Sen- 
ator Breckenridge  "The  executive  *  *  *  have  done 
an  act  beyond  the  Constitution,"  but  on  the  following 
day  he  wrote  to  ask  that  this  letter  be  suppressed,  and 
added  that  "we  should  do  sub  silentio  what  shall  be 
found  necessary."  He  would  not  let  his  interpretation 
of  the  Constitution  interfere  with  a  good  business  prop- 
osition. 

Congress  met  on  October  17,  1803,  and  the  an- 
395 


A  History  of  the 

nexation  of  Louisiana  was  discussed.  On  October  25, 
the  House  resolved,  "That  provision  ought  to  be  made 
for  carrying  into  effect  the  treaty."  The  vote  stood 
ninety  to  twenty-five.  In  the  Senate  a  bill,  introduced 
by  John  Breckenridge,  of  Kentucky,  "to  enable  the 
President  of  the  United  States  to  take  possession  of 
the  territories  ceded  by  France,"  was  passed  on  Wed- 
nesday, October  26 ;  yeas,  twenty-six ;  nays,  six.  This 
bill  was  approved  October  31,  1803,  (annals  of  Con- 
gress, i8o3-'o4). 

Foster's  "Century  of  American  Diplomacy"  sum- 
marizes the  arguments  against  admission  as  follows : 

"The  boundaries  were  in  dispute  and  it  would  prob- 
ably lead  to  war — a  prediction  that  was  realized  some 
forty  years  later;  the  large  territory  was  useless  and 
not  wanted;  the  price  was  too  high — it  was  equal  to 
433  tons  of  silver,  it  would  load  866  wagons,  extend- 
ing 51-3  miles,  would  make  a  pile  of  dollars  three 
miles  high,  equal  to  25  ship  loads,  would  provide  $3 
to  each  man,  woman  and  child  in  the  country." 

Such  a  vast,  unmanageable  extent  of  territory 
threatened  the  subversion  of  the  Union,  said  the  leader 
of  the  Federalists. 

It  may  be  noted,  however,  that  an  argument  which 
was  urged  against  the  annexation  of  the  Philippines, 
in  recent  years,  was  not  heard  in  1803.  No  one  arose 
to  say  that  the  native  population  of  the  new  territory 
was  sure  to  flood  the  old,  and  by  competition  cut  down 
the  wages  of  the  poor  working  man. 

To  go  back  a  little  and  take  up  the  thread  of  events 
in  the  Mississippi  Valley,  it  is  found  that  the  formal 
work  of  transferring  Louisiana  from  Spain  to  France 

396 


THOMAS   B.    ROBERTSON. 

First  Congressman  elected  from  the  State  of  Louisiana,  afterward 
Governor.    This  portrait  is  by  St.  Memim. 


Mississippi   Valley. 

had  been  begun  before  the  territory  had  been  sold  to 
the  United  States.  Pierre  Clement  Laussat,  (a  man 
who  "could  swim  well  in  rough  water,"  he),  was  sent 
by  Napoleon  to  New  Orleans  as  civil  Governor,  and  he 
arrived  on  March  26,  1803.  He  knew  nothing  about 
the  negotiations  for  a  sale  to  the  United  States,  and 
his  proclamation  to  the  people  of  the  region  filled  them 
with  "a  delirium  of  extreme  felicity,"  as  they  said. 
Some  weeks  later  came  the  Marquis  de  Casa  Calvo  to 
represent  the  Spanish  King  in  the  transfer.  A  pro- 
longed series  of  public  entertainments  followed,  re- 
garding which  Laussat  made  this  significant  remark : 

"The  tendency  of  these  festivities  was,  no  doubt, 
to  spread  the  taste  for  pleasure  and  luxury  in  a  colony 
which  being  in  its  nascent  state,  still  needs  a  great  deal 
of  economy  and  labor." 

Laussat  saw  dimly  why  both  France  and  Spain  had 
failed  in  colonizing  the  Great  Valley. 

While  the  happy-go-lucky  Creoles  danced,  a  ship 
came  from  Bordeaux  with  the  news  that  the  territory 
had  been  sold  to  the  Americans.  It  was  first  to  be 
transferred  to  France,  however,  and  this  was  done  on 
November  30.  As  Miss  King  says  in  her  New  Or- 
leans, an  ''elaborate  but  uninteresting  formality  took 
place."  French  municipal  officers  were  appointed,  and 
a  Creole  took  command  of  the  militia. 

In  the  meantime  the  preparations  for  annexing  the 
territory  had  been  completed  in  the  United  States. 
Because  Spain  had  protested  against  the  transfer  to 
the  United  States,  (Napoleon  had  agreed  not  to  sell 
without  Spain's  consent),  a  large  body  of  militia  was 
ordered  out  along  the  upper  rivers,  and  flat  boats  for 

397 


A  History  of  the 

their  use  were  provided.  A  force  500  strong  was  sent 
to  Natchez.  W.  C.  C.  Claiborne,  then  Governor  of 
Mississippi,  and  General  James  Wilkinson,  the  head 
of  the  regular  army,  were  appointed  commissioners  to 
receive  the  Territory  at  New  Orleans.  Each  of  these 
two  men  are  still  well  remembered — Claiborne  for  the 
skill  with  which  he  managed  the  people  of  New  Or- 
leans; Wilkinson  as  one  of  the  most  detestable  of  trait- 
ors. The  commissioners  met  at  Fort  Adams,  below 
Natchez,  and  on  December  7,  with  a  sufficient  escort 
of  soldiers,  began  their  march  to  New  Orleans.  The 
schooner  Bilboa,  (chartered  for  $1,854.18,  if  any  one 
is  anxious  for  details),  floated  down  the  river  carrying 
the  baggage.  On  December  17  the  party  camped  two 
miles  from  the  city,  and  two  days  were  then  passed  in 
formal  visits,  and  in  agreeing  on  the  details  of  the 
coming  ceremonies. 

December  20  was  the  day  selected  for  the  transfer. 
As  the  people  of  the  city  of  New  Orleans  awoke  on 
that  morning,  it  was  noted  as  a  good  omen  that  "in- 
stead of  the  rain  and  clouds  that  had  attended  the 
Spanish  ceremonies,  the  day  dawned  clear  and  bright." 
At  sunrise  the  French  tricolor  was  spread  to  the  gentle 
breeze  at  the  top  of  the  tall  flag  pole  that  stood  in  the 
centre  of  the  Place  d'Armes,  while  the  ships  at  the 
levee,  and  at  anchor  in  the  stream,  were  decorated  with 
a  great  spread  of  bright  bunting.  At  9  o'clock  the 
militia  began  to  muster,  and  at  11  o'clock  they 
marched,  with  beating  drums,  into  the  Place  d'Armes. 
A  notable  throng  gathered  about  them,  and  along  the 
street  by  which  the  Americans  were  to  come — a  throng 
that  included   the   gentry   in   their   colored   silks   and 

398 


Mississippi   Valley. 

velvets,  and  slaves  in  osnaburgs;  pirates  in  sea  "togs" 
from  the  West  Indies,  and  tall,  lank  backwoodsmen 
in  fringed  leather  hunting,  or  red  flannel  shirts — men 
of  every  nation,  and  men  without  a  country.  But 
gathered  at  the  foot  of  the  flag  pole  was  a  band  of  fifty 
old  French  soldiers  who,  on  November  30,  had  been 
organized  as  a  guard  for  the  tricolor  flag. 

Soon  after  the  local  militia  had  been  paraded  in 
line  facing  the  flag  pole  a  gun  was  fired  at  the  Amer- 
ican camp  to  announce  that  the  American  forces  had 
started  for  the  city.  In  due  time  they  reached  the 
Tchoupitoulas  gate,  where  they  received  a  salute  of 
twenty-one  guns.    Then  they  marched  into  the  city. 

At  the  head  of  the  column  rode  the  commissioners. 
They  were  followed  by  "a  detachment  of  dragoons  in 
red  uniform,  four  pieces  of  artillery,  two  companies  of 
infantry  and  one  of  carbineers."  Marching  to  the  cen- 
tre of  the  Place  d'Armes  the  column  was  paraded  to 
face  the  local  militia.  Then  the  commissioners  dis- 
mounted and  walked  to  the  Cabildo,  or  City  Hall, 
where  they  were  received  by  Laussat,  who,  with  the 
officers  of  the  municipality,  conducted  them  to  the 
great  hall  of  the  building.  They  found  there  the  most 
notable  citizens  of  the  city.  At  the  head  of  the  hall 
stood  three  elevated  chairs.  In  the  centre  and  most 
elevated  of  these  three  Laussat  sat  down,  and  placed 
Claiborne  on  his  right  and  Wilkinson  on  his  left.  The 
reading  of  the  various  commissions,  the  treaty  of  ces- 
sion, etc.,  followed,  and  then  Laussat  gave  the  keys  of 
the  city  to  Claiborne,  and  changed  seats  with  him. 
The  citizens  who  wished  to  remain  in  the  country 
were  next  absolved  from  their  allegiance  to  France. 

399 


A  History  of  the 

Finally  Laussat,  Claiborne  and  Wilkinson  walked 
out  on  a  balcony  where  they  could  look  over  the  motley 
throng  that  had  gathered  in  the  Place  d'Armes,  and 
away  to  the  decorated  shipping  in  the  harbor.  The 
supreme  moment  of  the  transfer  had  now  come.  As 
the  commissioners  appeared  on  the  balcony  the  sergeant 
of  the  old  French  guard  loosened  the  halliards  and  be- 
gan to  lower  the  tricolor.  At  the  same  instant  an 
American  soldier  commenced  hoisting  the  Gridiron 
Flag.  Midway  the  two  flags  met,  and  as  they  fluttered 
together  for  a  moment,  a  single  gun  was  fired.  And 
then,  as  the  two  flags  were  separated,  every  gun  in 
the  city  began  to  fire  a  national  salute;  the  guns  on 
the  shipping  joined  in;  a  brass  band  played  "Hail 
Columbia,"  while  the  backwoodsmen  and  the  keelboat- 
men  in  their  fringed  and  red  flannel  shirts,  cheered 
with  frantic  joy,  and  leaping  up,  slapped  their  hands 
on  their  sides  and  crowed  until  they  were  hoarse.  But 
the  gentry,  in  colored  satins  and  laces,  wept. 

At  the  end  of  August,  1656,  those  enterprising 
and  courageous  Frenchmen — the  coiireiirs  de  hois, 
known  as  Grosseilliers  and  Radisson — men  who  would 
and  did  work  according  to  the  powers  given  them,  re- 
turned to  Montreal  and  reported  that  they  had  been 
on  the  waters  of  the  Great  River.  And  "their  arrival 
caused  the  country  universal  joy." 

On  April  9,  1682,  La  Salle,  the  greatest  of  all  the 
French-Americans,  a  man  who  worked  as  few  of  any 
nation  have  done,  standing  on  a  sand  bar  at  the  mouth 
of  the  Great  River,  proclaimed  the  sovereignty  of  his 
King  over  all  the  wondrous  unknown  valley  whose 
waters  flowed  at  his  feet. 

400 


Mississippi   Valley. 

For  121  years  thereafter  the  flags  of  foreign  na- 
tions waved  above  the  evergreen  slopes  that  had  glad- 
dened the  hearts  of  those  men  of  deeds.  But  because 
a  new  race  had  been  originated  on  the  American  con- 
tinent— a  race  of  whom  it  could  be  said  "The  thing 
that  is  given  it  to  do  it  can  make  itself  do" — the  period 
of  foreign  control  was  limited.  With  a  "blinkard  daz- 
zlement  and  staggerings  to  and  fro"  as  "of  a  man  sent 
on  an  errand  he  is  too  weak  for  by  a  path  he  cannot  yet 
find,"  this  race  had  reached  out  and  grasped  the  mighty 
Valley  from  brim  to  brim. 

THE  END. 


401 


INDEX. 


Abenakls  Indians,  driven  from 
New  England,  join  La  Salle, 
40;  persuaded  to  make  war, 
121. 

Abercrombie  defeated,   151. 

Accau,  Michael,  heads  an  ex- 
ploring  expedition,    37. 

Adams,  John,  at  peace  treaty, 
332 

Albany,  N.   Y..   Dutch  at,   33-34. 

Alibamons  Indians,  in  Alaba- 
ma.   62. 

Alleghanies  crossed  by  British 
settlers,  124;  Duquesne  forti- 
fies,  133. 

Alleghany  region,  French  move 
into.    12S. 

Alleghany  Co.,  N.  Y.,  and  river 
shed   visited,   8. 

Allouez,  Father,  estab.  Mission 
at  La  Pointe,  8. 

Amherst,  Sir  Jeffrey,  captures 
Louisburg,  151;  in  Pontiac's 
"War,    175. 

Animals  of  Miss.  Valley,  18,  22; 
Beavers   in,   24;   abundant,   189. 

Armies,  American,  efficiency,  252. 

Aubrv,  succeeds  D'Abbadie,  163; 
permits  British  trade  in  New 
Orleans,   167. 

Au  Glaize  river  named,  349. 

Badine,  Iberville's  ship,  53. 

Baker,  John.   198. 

Baker,  Joshua,  attack  on  Indi- 
ans, 215. 

Bank.  Louis  ("Bar"),  meets 
French   at   English  Turn,   57. 

Barlow,    Joel,    speculator,    337. 

Barre,  La  antagonizes  La  Salle, 
45. 

Baton  Rouge,  British  take  pos- 
session of,  205;  named,  55. 

Bean,  William,  on  B  o  o  n  e'  s 
Creek,    200. 

Battle  Island.  Ohio,  named,  305. 

Bayou  Manchac,  named,  55; 
British    at.    288. 

Bears  as  domestic  cattle,  79. 
Beaubassion,     Sieur     de,     leads 

raid,  121. 
Beaujeu,    Capt.    Daniel    Lienard 

de,  "attacks  Braddock.  144. 
Beavers.  120;  eaten  in  feast,  5. 
Bernadotte,   General  Charles,  to 

take   Miss.   Valley.   388. 
Berthier,    Alexander,    gets    Lou- 
isiana and  Florida  for  Napol- 
eon, 384. 


Big  Bottom,  Pa.,  attacked,  339. 
Big  Lick,  site  of  Boonesborough, 

227. 
Bienville,  "Father  of  New  Or- 
leans," 52;  buys  a  letter  of 
Indian,  55;  meets  English,  58; 
meets  Tonti,  59;  time  in  the 
Louisiana  colony,  60;  as  to  ri- 
valries, 61;  Vente  opposes,  62; 
opposes  a  marriage,  62;  sends 
soldiers  among  Indians  for 
food,  63;  plans  new  fort,  72; 
founds  New  Orleans,  74;  sends 
surveyors  to  lay  out  new  cap- 
ital, 104;  opposed,  106;  builds 
first  levee,  106;  leaves  country, 
115;  describes  soldiers,  116. 
Bigot,  Francois,  character  of 
Intendant,  134;  loves  Madam 
Pean,  154. 
Biloxi,   Miss.,  settled,   56;   Sioux 

Indians  at,  79. 
Bilboa,     ship,     carries     commis- 
sioners, 398. 
Bird,   Colonel,   builds   fort,   150. 
Bird,  Capt.  Henry,  raids,  289. 
Bishop    of    New    Orleans    com- 
plains of  tolerance  to  Protes- 
tants, 382. 
Bledsoe.    Anthony,    surveys  Va. 

line,  202. 
Blount,     William,     Governor    of 

Tennessee,   etc.,   363. 
Blue  Earth  River,  named,  60. 
Blue  Licks,  Ky.,  Battle  at,   310. 
Boisbriant,  Major  Pierre  Hugue, 
falls   in    love.    62;    builds    Fort 
Chartres,   107. 
Bonaparte,       Lucien,      makes 

treaty,  385. 
Boone,  Daniel,  with  Braddock, 
147;  ancestry  and  early  life,  196; 
story  of,  197;  crosses  mountain 
wall,  198;  Squire  joins  Daniel, 
199;  typical  explorer.  2O0;  warns 
of  coming  war,  212;  in  Tran- 
sylvania. 225;  fights  Indians, 
226;  brings  wife  to  Boones- 
borough. 240;  prepares  game 
and  horse  laws.  244:  daughter 
Jemima  carried  off.  259:  at 
Blue  Licks,  264.  310;  sees  chief 
need  of  the  country,  327;  cross- 
es the  Mississipni,  381;  ap- 
pointed to  office,  382. 
Boone,  Squire,  brother  of  Dan- 
iel, in  Kentucky,  199. 


403 


Index. 


Boonesborough.  Kentucky,  227; 
first  woman  at,  240;  attacked, 
264. 

Boston  Port  closed,  248. 

Bouquet,  Col.  Henry,  commands 
Colonials,  177;  wins  Bushy  Run 
fight,   179;   forces  peace,   181. 

Bowman,  John,  first  Kentucky 
Colonel,  259. 

Braddock,  Edward,  sails  for 
America,  142;  attacked  by 
French,  144;  shot,  145;  dies,  147. 

Brady,    Samuel,    borderer,   328. 

Bradstreet,  Lieut.  Col.  John, 
takes  Fort  Frontenac,  151; 
General,  sent  against  Indians, 
181. 

Brant,  Joseph,  334;  tells  of 
British  duplicity,  341. 

Brazos  river,   Nolan  on,  381. 

Breckenridge,  Senator  John,  395; 
introduces  bill  to  authorize 
Louisiana  treaty,  396. 

Bryan's  Station,  attack  on,  308. 

British,  civilization  of,  250,  et 
seq.;  urge  attack  on  Christian 
Indians,  295;  welchers  after  the 
Rev.,  333;  object  in  Northwest, 
334;  urge  Indians  to  war,  334; 
against  peace,  341;  idea  of 
Wayne's  work,  345;  attitude 
toward  U.  S.,  345;  betray 
Indians,  351;  impressed  by  good 
fighting,  352;  plan  to  raid  Mis- 
sissinpi  Valley,  367;  get  a  rival 
from  Napoleon,  393. 

Brule,  Etienne,  First  Coureur 
de  Bois,  1;  at  Lake  copper 
mines,  3;   fate,  3. 

Bryan,  Rebecca,  Boone's  wife, 
197. 

Buffalo,  wild  cattle,  18;  heard 
by  Joliet,  22;  30,000  skins  wast- 
ed.  63. 

Bullies  of  the  Miss.  Valley,   377. 

Bullitt,  Capt.  Thomas,  survey- 
or in  Ohio  Valley,  207. 

Burgoyne's  surrender,  to  whom 
credit   is   due,   268. 

Burnet,  Gov.  Wm.,  founds  Os- 
wego,   122. 

Bushy  Run,  Penn.,  battle  at, 
178. 

Butler.  General  Richard,  robbed 
by  desperadoes,  211;  killed  at 
St.    Clair's    defeat,    340. 

Butler,  trader,  canoes  attacked, 

213. 
Cabins,  log,  how  built,  228. 
Cadillac,  Le  Mothe,  Gov.  of  De- 
troit &  Louisiana.  64;  com- 
plains of  profligates,  66;  tries 
to  promote  trade,  67;  sends 
out  expeditions,  68;  views  on 
trado,  Int'ian  policy  and  col- 
ony, 69;  dismissed,  69. 


Cahokia,  (Kaoquias)  110;  con- 
quered, 272. 

Cairo,   trading  station   near,   63. 

Caldwell,  Capt.  William,  305; 
attacks  Bryan's  Station,  308; 
at    Fallen   Timbers,    350. 

Calk,   Journal   of,   230. 

Calloway,  Betsey  &  Fanny, 
captured,   260. 

Calumet,    peace    pipe    given    to 
Joliet,    19;    brings    peace,    22- 
23;    Indians    accept    Quakers', 
153. 

Calvo,  Marquis  de  Casa,  repre- 
sents Spanish  at  New  Orleans 
transfer,  397. 

Campbell,      Colonel      Archibald, 
takes    Savannah,   313. 
Campbell,      Col.      William,     at 
Kings     Mountain,     316;     hangs 
a  Tory,  328. 

Campbell,  Major,  commands  a 
British   fort  on    Maumee,   352. 

Cameron  with  raiders,  255. 

Canadians,  in  the  South,  60; 
fought    Braddock,    144,    148. 

Canoes  and  dugouts  described, 
5,  22,  30. 

Carheil,  Father  Etienne  de,  de- 
scribes  missions,    116. 

Carmichael,   in   Spain,   373. 

Carleton,  Sir  Guy,  see  Lord 
Dorchester. 

Carondelet,  Baron  de,  com- 
mands at  New  Orleans,  starts 
Indian  raids,  371;  opposes  El- 
licott,   375;    transferred,    376. 

Catholic  Church  protected,  272; 
Children    must   join,    382. 

Cat  Island,  named,  54;  mutiny 
on,   116. 

Cataraqui,  (Kingston,  Canada). 
27;  settlement  grows  at,  30. 

Caughnowagas,   121. 

Celoron,  (Monsieur  de  Bienville) 
takes  possession  of  Ohio  Val- 
ley, buries  plates,  etc.,  128; 
meets  Old  Britain,  Indian 
chief,   129. 

Champlain,  Samuel  de,  sends 
Brule  to  the  Indians,  2;  work 
in  America,  2;  influence  of  his 
gun  over-rated,  28. 
Champlain.  Lake,  discovered, 
fight,   etc.,   2. 

Charleston,  W.  Va.,  laid  out,  207. 
Chesne,    Monsieur   de,    order   for 

service  among  Hurons,  51. 
Chicago  River,  La  Salle's  work 
on,  43;  portage  to  Fox  River, 
111. 
Chickasaws  and  English  threat- 
en French,  57;  hunted  by  Choc- 
taws,  62;  see 'Indian  summary, 
•76  et  seq. 


404 


Index. 


Chickasaw  Bluff,  La  Salle  at, 
44;  Gayoso  fortifies,  373;  Elli- 
cott  stopped  at,  375;  Spanish, 
377. 

Chillicothe,  Ohio,  raided  by 
Clark,  290. 

China,  search  for,   4-9. 

Chine,  La,  rapids,  described,  8, 
9;  origin  of  name,  10,  11;  when. 
Celeron   left,   128. 

Choctaw  Indians  encouraged  to 
hunt   other  tribes,   62. 

Choteau,  August  &  Pierre,  sons 
of  Laclede,   162. 

Christina,  Indian  woman,  begs 
for  life,  301. 

Cincinnati,    Ohio,    named,    339. 

Civil  Govt.  West  of  Alleghanies, 
202,  244. 

Claiborne,  W.  C.  C,  American 
Governor  of  Miss.,  398. 

Claims,  land  entry,  made  with 
tomahawk,  204;  cost  of,  245; 
at  Marietta,  338;  French  and 
British  opposing,  124. 

Clark,  George  Rogers,  his  work, 
196;  at  Wheeling,  213;  with 
Cresap,  214;  carries  petition, 
258;  kills  Indian,  262;  sends 
spies  to  Illinois,  263;  method 
of  defending  Kentucky,  265; 
Illinois  campaign,  267,  et  seq.; 
skill  in  handling  French  and 
Indians,  270,  et.  seq.;  Vin- 
cennes  taken,  274;  when  the 
British  came  to  the  Wabash, 
275,  et  seq.;  builds  gun  boat, 
277;  retakes  Vincennes,  281; 
returns  to  Falls  of  Ohio.  284; 
ill-treatment  of,  285;  value  of 
work,  332,  353;  contemplates 
raid  on  Natchez,  364;  to  aid 
French  schemes,  371. 

Clerc,  Leo  (brother-in-law  of 
Napoleon),  in  San  Domingo, 
384. 

Clothing,  frontier,  238,  241;  Amer- 
ican and  French  compared, 
241-242. 

Cocquard,  Father  Godfrey,  de- 
scribes French-Indian  raids, 
148. 

Comet,  La  Salle's  view  of,  com- 
pared with    Mather's,   40. 

Congress  at  Albany,  141;  at  Al- 
exandria, 142. 

Congress,  U.  S.  and  Indians 
and  Pirates,  341;  accepts  lands 
from  States,  363;  ratifies  pur- 
chase of  Louisiana  Ter.,  395- 
396. 

Connelly,  Dr.  John,  makes  trou- 
ble at  Pittsburg,  211;  tries  to 
Imprison  friendly  Indians,  217; 
back  to  Kentucky,   367. 

Constitution,  United  States, 
adopted,  362. 


Contractors,  vile  thieves,  343. 

Contrecoeur,  Capt.  Claude  Pe- 
caudy  de,  takes  a  fort,  138; 
commands  at  Ft.  Duquesne, 
143;   .succeeded   by   Dumas,   148. 

Convicts   in    colonies,    104. 

Cooley,  William,  explores  Ken- 
tucky, 198. 

Copper,  found  by  Etienne 
Brule,  3;  search  for,  10,  14; 
Indian  use  of,  80. 

Corn  as  a  diet,  60,  61;  food  of 
the  Indians,  79;  on  frontier, 
242;   price  in  Hard  Winter,  321. 

Cornstalk  attacks  Virginians, 
218;  at  the  peace  treaty,  221; 
favors  Americans,  266;  mur- 
dered, 266. 

Cornwallis,  Lord,  whips  Gates, 
314;    surrenders,   329. 

Cotton,  profitable,  380;  cotton- 
gin,  380. 

Coureurs  de  bois,  first,  1;  de- 
scribed, 3,  33,  34,  68;  some  en- 
terprising, 111. 

Cowan,  John,  first  house  at 
i^ouisville,   207. 

Crawford,  Col.  William,  re« 
ceives  ammunition,  z88;  in  raid 
on  Sandusky  towns,  304;  tor- 
tured by  Indians,  306. 

Creoles,  described,  169;  migra- 
tion, 169;  and  French  Repub- 
lic, 170;  untimely  dancing  of, 
397. 

Cresap,  Michael,  needless 
slaughters  of  Indians,  213;  in 
Revolution,   248. 

Cresap,  Col.  Thomas,  on  Poto- 
mac, 123;  employed  by  Ohio 
company,  190. 

Crevecoeur,    Fort,    236. 

Crozat,  Anthony,  controls  Lou- 
isiana, 64;  loses  money,  68; 
surrenders  Louisiana  to  King, 

Croghan,  George,  sent  to  Indi- 
ans, 191;  warns  against  attack 
on  Indians,  212;  foils  Connel- 
ly. 217. 

Cumberland,    Duke    of,    124,    191. 

Cumberland  River  &  Gap 
named,  124. 

Cumberland,  Md.,  trail  from,  124. 

Cutbirth,    Benjamin,   198. 

Cutler,  Rev.  Manasseh,  secures 
land  grant  from  Congress,  336, 
337. 

D'Abbadie,  M.,  sent  to  New 
Orleans.  163;  permits  British 
trade  in  New  Orleans,   167. 

Dablon,  Father  Claude,  tells  or 
Joliet,  15. 

Daring,  frigate,  whipped  by 
d' Iberville,  52. 


405 


Index. 


Dartmouth,  ship,  (tea  party), 
248. 

Dauphine  Island,  named,  54; 
settled,   60. 

Deckhard  rifle,  237;  used  at 
King's  Mountain,  315;  Deck- 
hard   rifle   government,   203. 

Delassus,  Don  Charles  D.,  ap- 
points   Boone    to    office,    382. 

De  Ligneris,  leaves  Duquesne, 
154. 

Denis,  Juchereau  de  St.,  expe- 
ditions  to   Mexico,    67,    68. 

De  Noyant,   arrested,   165. 

Denton,  Mrs.,  one  of  the  first 
white  women  in  Kentucky, 
240. 

De   Soto,   see  chapter  ix. 

Desperadoes,   211. 

D-s  Plaines  River,  La  Salle  on, 
11. 

Detroit,  Mich.,  Clark  plans  to 
take,   284. 

Dieskau,  Baron,  in  command  of 
Canada,  142. 

Dinwiddle,  Gov.  Robert,  pro- 
tests to  French,  135;  King  or- 
ders him  to  make  war  on  the 
French,  137;  sends  troops  to 
Redstone   creek,   138. 

Diplomacy,    early   Indian,    4. 

Doak.  Rev.  Samuel,  and  his 
books,  319;  labors  successful, 
362. 

Doddridge's  Notes.  232;  opinion 
of  Williamson,  299. 

Donelson,  Col.  John,  goes  to 
site  of  Nashville,   290. 

Dorchester,  Lord,  (formerly  Sir 
Guy  Carleton)  letter  to,  334; 
misrepresentations  by,  336; 
speaks  to  the  Indians,  346;  re- 
sponsible for  Indian  suffer- 
ings, 349. 

Douay,  Father  Anastose.  pres- 
ent at  death  of  La  Salle,  48, 
49. 

Douville's  troops  gave  no  quar- 
ter, 149. 

Drag^ng  Canoe,  attacks  whites, 
256;    refuses   peace,    258. 

Dubreuil.  A.  M.,  erects  sugar 
mill,  168. 

Duclos,  commissary,  describes 
women  of  Louisiana,  66;  dis- 
missed,  69. 

Duer,   Col.   "William,   speculator, 

337. 
Dug-out,  a  Sioux  boat,   5. 

Du  Gay,  assistant  of  Accau,  37. 
Dumas,  Captain,  succeeds  Con- 
trecoeur,  148;  gives  written 
orders  to  prevent  torture,  149; 
like  Col.  Hamilton,  255. 
Dunlap  Station,  Ky.,  attacked, 
339. 


Dunmore,  Lord,  in  Indian  War, 
218;  makes  peace,  221;  pro- 
claims  in   vain,   243. 

Dunmore's  War,  209,  et  seq. ; 
action  of  soldiers  at  end  of, 
247. 

Duquesne,  Marquis  de  Menne- 
ville,  approves  attack  on  Old 
Britain,  132;  to  keep  British 
east  of  Alleghanies,  133. 

Duquesne.  Fort,  prisoners  burn- 
ed   at,    146;    evacuated,    171. 

Dutch,  give  guns  and  ideas  to 
Indians,    100. 

Eaton's  Station,  garrison  at- 
tacks   Indians,   256. 

Ecuyer,  Captain,  deceives  In- 
dians,   176. 

Ellicott,  Andrew,  American 
Commissioner  to  survey  line 
between  United  States  and 
Spanisli    Florida,    375. 

Ellinipsico,    killed,    266. 

Elliott,    Matthew,    Renegade,  305. 

English  top  the  Alleghanies.  57, 
75;  claim  the  West,  76;  cross 
the  Alleghanies.  124;  com- 
pared with  French,  124;  rights 
in  the  Mississippi  Valley,  125- 
126;  gain  Canada,  155;  horri- 
fied by  sight  of  Yorkshire 
habit  of  gouging  out  eyes,  327. 

English  Turn  in  Mississippi 
River,    named,    58. 

Erie,  Penn.,  (Presqu'  Isle), 
French  reach,    134. 

Espiritu  Santu,  a  name  of  Mis- 
sissippi River,  161. 

Fallen  Timbers,  battle  of,  350 
et   seq. 

Fawcett,  Thomas,  kills  Brad- 
dock,   145. 

Feast  of  120  beavers,  5;  Immac- 
ulate Conception,  16;  Fron- 
tier, 242. 

Federalists  and  War,  390. 

Femme  Osage  district,  Missou- 
ri, 382. 

Ferguson,  Major  Patrick,  finds 
Patriots,  314;  fights  at  King's 
Mountain,   315,  317. 

Fillibustering,  threatened,  364, 
371;    done,   381. 

Filson,  John,  map,  228;  with 
Symmes   and   Boone,   338. 

Finley,  John,  tells  Boone  sto- 
ries' 197;   with  Boone,  198. 

Florida,  De  Soto  lands  in,  158; 
British  in  West,  167,  288;  Span- 
ish gain,  289;  French  gain,  384. 

Floyd,   John,   Kentucky  Colonel, 

325. 
Pood,    frontier,   242;   cost  of,   324. 
Forbes,     Gen.    John,    starts    for 
Ft,   Duquesne,  152;  enters,  154. 


406 


Index. 


Forts.  Adams.  398;  Bute,  built, 
206;  British  on  Maumee,  (Mi- 
ami), 347;  Chartres,  107; 
French  at  Chartres,  154;  Char- 
tres surrendered,  207;  chain 
of  built,  151;  Defiance.  349;  Du- 
quesne,  built,  134,  138;  Fred- 
erick, at  Crown  Point,  122; 
Frontenac,  built,  30;  the  same 
pledged  for  debt,  31;  seized, 
33;  captured  by  British,  151; 
Indian  at  Marietta,  85;  Grand- 
ville,  150;  Great  Meadows,  139; 
La  Boulaye,  159;  La  Boeuf, 
13-:  Massac,  269,  272;  Miami, 
built  by  La  Salle,  36;  Mata- 
gorda Bay,  46;  same  raided, 
49;  Natchitoches.  68-69;  Ne- 
cessity, 140;  New  Orleans, 
first  built,  72.  74;  Oswego,  122; 
Pitt,  besieged,  175;  Redstone, 
138;  St.  Louis,  45;  Starved 
Rock.  45;  Venango,  135;  Wash- 
ington, 340;  Wayne,  352.  See 
chapter  on   La   Salle. 

Fox  River,  Nicolet  up,  5;  De- 
scription of  country  at  head, 
17;    Portage  at.   111. 

Frankfort,    Kv.,    founded,    208. 

Franklin,    state   set    up,   362. 

Franklin,  Ben.,  leaves  England, 
250;  makes  peace  treaty,  331, 
et  seq.;  his  regard  for  the  Mis- 
sissippi, 358. 

French-Indian  war,  first  gun, 
132. 

French   spoliations,    383-384. 

FVench,  (see  chapters  vi,  vii, 
viii.)  treaties  with  Indians.  2, 
4,  5;  compared  with  other  Na- 
tions, 6.  7,  11;  peace  with  Ir- 
oquois, 28;  jealousy  of  English, 
53;    dislike  of   Americans,   270. 

French  Government,  attitude 
toward  U.  S.,  332.  351;  plans 
to  take  New  Orleans  from 
Spanish,  371;  buys  Louisiana, 
383,  384;  warned  by  Jefferson, 
386;  sell  Louisiana  to  U.  S., 
394. 

Friendship,    frontier   test   of.  290. 

Frontenac,  Monsieur  de.  Gov. 
Canada,  sends  Joliet  to  Mis- 
sissippi, 15;  described,  26;  rec- 
ognizes La  Salle's  worth,  26; 
leaves  Montreal  to  dazzle  Iro- 
quois, 27;  sends  La  Salle  to 
France,  28;  hates  Jesuits,  29; 
coat  of  arms.  32;   recalled,   45. 

Frontier  life.   107,   108. 

Fry,  Joshua,  made  Colonel,  137; 
sent  to  Logstown,  191;  death, 
140. 

F\irniture   frontier.   232. 

Galena.   111.,    founded.   108. 

Galvez.  Don  Bernado  de.  Gov. 
of    Louisiana,    287;    confiscates 


British  ships,  287;  loans  U.  S. 
$6,000,288;  captures  Natchez,  289, 
359,   369;   Miro  succeeds.  363. 

Game    laws,    244. 

Gardoqui,  Don  Diego,  Spanish 
treaty  made  by,  364;  his  bri- 
bery, 365;  plans  to  draw  off 
American  settlers.  367;  re- 
turns   to    Spain,    369. 

Gates.  Gen.  Horatio,  defeated, 
314;    Wilkinson,    his    aide,    360. 

Gayarre.  Charles,  historian,  on 
burning  of   Indians,   114. 

Gayoso,  (Manuel  Gayoso  de 
Lemos),  and  Wilkinson,  365; 
Commandant  at  Chicksaw 
Bluffs,  373;  wearisome  dilly- 
ing-dallying,  375;  dies  after 
spree,    389. 

Genet,  "Citizen,"  Edmund 
Charles,  comes  to  U.  S..  371. 

Georgia,  movement  to  control 
Miss.  Valley  begun,  370;  sells 
land  (Yazoo  fraud).   373. 

Georgian  Bay  visited  by  Nico- 
let, 4;  La  Salle  en  route  to, 
43. 

Germain,  Lord,  approved  In- 
dian raids.  289. 

German  Coast  of  Miss.  River, 
104. 

Germans   in   Miss.   Valley,   104. 

Gibault,  Father  Pierre,  begs 
Clark  for  life,  271:  helps  Amer- 
icans   secure    Vincennes,    272. 

Gibson,  Col.,  John,  interpreter, 
222;  tries  to  protect  Gnaden- 
hutten    Indians,    277.    279. 

Girty.  Simon,  and  Moravians, 
298;  at  Crawford's  raid,  305;  at- 
tacks  Dunlap   station,    339. 

Gist,  Christopher,  with  Wash- 
ington. 136.  139;  employed  by- 
Ohio  Company,  190;  treats  with 
Indians,    191. 

Gnadenhutten,  Ohio.  89;  Indi- 
ans at,  188;  building  of.  216; 
the  storv  of.  293;  et  seq.;  ef- 
fect on  Indians,  308-311;  effect 
of,  329. 

Gomer,    Nancy,   heroine,   291. 

Gordon,  Lieut.,  captured  and 
killed.    175. 

Government,  frontier,  244;  at 
Watauga.  201;  at  Nashbor- 
ough.   291. 

Grant.  Major  James,  defeated, 
153. 

Grave  Creek.  W.  Va..  attack 
on   Indians   at.    214. 

Gravier.  Father,  at  Kaskaskia, 
75:  manner  of  curing  disease, 
115. 

Grny.    soldier,    esoanes.   175. 

Greathouse.  Daniel  C,  leads 
attif^k.  on  Indians  at  Yellow 
creek,  215. 


407 


Index. 


Green  Bay,  Mich.,  Nicolet  at, 
5;    mentioned,   111. 

Greenville,   Ohio,  named,  345. 

Gridiron  Flag  co/ers  the  Na- 
tion, 378. 

Griflin,  first  ship  on  Lake  Erie, 
32;  sails  on  Lakv^s,  35;  lost, 
37-38. 

Grossellliers,  Menard  Chouart 
des,  goes  with  Radisson,  into 
region  S.  &  W.  of  Lake  Su- 
perior, 5;  described,  5,  6,  7; 
into  the  Miss.  Valley,  7;  final 
word  of,  400. 

Guion,  Captain  Isaac,  sent  to 
Miss.  Valley,  377. 

Gulf  of  Mexico,  La  Salle  reach- 
es, 44. 

Half  King,  speaks  to  Gnaden- 
hutten   Indians,  297. 

Hamilton,  Col.  Henry,  instruc- 
tions to,  251;  sends  raiders, 
253;  captured,  254;  incites  In- 
dians, 259;  tries  to  ransom 
Boone,  264;  goes  hunting 
Clark,  275;  takes  Vincennes, 
275;  Clark  sends  him  to  Vir- 
ginia,  281. 

Hammond,  British  Ambassador, 
describes  Wayne,  342;  justifieg 
British   aggression,   348. 

Hampshire,  ship  sunk  by  Iber- 
ville, 52,  53. 

"Hard  Winter,"  described,  320, 
mentioned,   290. 

Harmer,  Gen.  Josiah,  raids  In- 
dians, 335. 

Harpe,  Bernard  de  la,  builds 
Fort  St.  Louis  de  Carlorette, 
69. 

Harrison,  Benjamin,  at  battle 
of  Point  Pleasant,  221. 

Harrod,  James,  founds  Harrods- 
burg,  208. 

Harrodsburg,  Ky.,  become^ 
county  seat,  259;  under  fire  all 
summer,  261;  force  at,  263,  264; 
land  office  closed  by  Clark, 
290;  first  court  at,  325. 
HeckweldeT,  John,  Moravian 
Missionary,  216. 

Helm,  Capt.  Leonard,  at  Vin- 
cennes, 275;  bluffs  Col.  Hamil- 
ton, 276;  joke  on,  by  George 
Rogers   Clark,   281. 

Henderson,  Col.  Richard,  Boone 
works  for,  200;  founds  Tran- 
sylvania Co.,  225;  cause  of 
failure,   245. 

Henderson,  Ky.,  named  for  Col. 
Henderson,  245. 

Hennepin,  La  Salle's  Chaplain, 
and  historian  of  expedition 
to  Miss.  River,  33;  tries  to 
bribe  St.  Anthony,  33. 

Henry,  Patrick,  call  to  arms, 
248;    approves    Clark's    expedi' 


tion   to   Illinois,   268. 

Hickman   meets   Indians,  219. 

Hill,    William,   with   Boone,   198. 

Hillsborough,  Lord,  explains 
King's  proclamation  regarding 
Indian   land,   186. 

Hogan,  Mrs.,  comes  to  Boones- 
borough,   240. 

Homeseekers,  fearless  of  dan- 
ger, 264. 

House  boat,  first  known  on 
Miss.,  167. 

House  boatmen,  first  in  Miss. 
Valley  205. 

Hudson's  Bay,  (ship),  captured 
by  Iberville,  53. 

Huron  Indians,  guides  of  Nico- 
let,  4;  around  Georgian  Bay, 
5;   on   Miss.    River,  7. 

Iberville,  Le  Moyne  de,  offers 
to  plant  colony  in  Louisiana, 
52;  captures  British  ships  in 
Hudson's  Bay,  52;  sails  from 
Brest,  53;  into  Miss.  River,  54; 
names  lakes,  55;  meets  Ton- 
ti,  59;  moves  colony  to  Mo- 
bile Bay,  60;  builds  Miss,  fort, 
72. 

Ignace,  St.,  (Village  in  Michi- 
gan), mission,  Joliet  at,  16. 

Illinois  Indians,  La  Salle's  peace 
with,  36. 

Illinois,    (state)    first   land    war- 
rant   in,    108;    grain    from,    110; 
early  settlements,   110. 
t,  Illinois    river,    route    of   Joliet's 
return,  23,  24. 

Independence,  first  idea  of  in 
U.  S.,  165;  and  Watauga 
Govt.,  203. 

Indians,  (see  chapter  v.),  trea- 
ty with  l^icolet,  4;  hostile  to 
Joliet,  22;  Fox  implacably 
against  the  French,  111;  in- 
ternal dissensions,  131;  can- 
nibals, 148,  149;  relative  losses 
in  wars  with  whites,  180;  how 
wronged  by  whites,  187,  188; 
British  and,  250;  character 
shown  in  dealing  with  George 
Rogers  Clark,  272,  273;  most 
significant  statement  made  in 
connection  with,  295;  faith  of, 
298;  smallpox  spread  among, 
291. 

Indigo  in  Louisiana,  167,  168. 

Innes,  Judge  Henry,  a  traitor, 
366. 

Iroquois,  raids,  6;  check  com- 
merce of  French,  6;  Fronten- 
ac  and,  27;  enmity  toward 
French,  28;  sent  by  Jesuits  to 
destroy  fort,  39;  see  Indian 
summary,  79.  et  seq. ;  losing 
grip,  131. 

Iroquet,  Indian  Chief,  treats 
with  Champlain,  2. 


408 


Index. 


Jackson,     Andrew,      backwoods 
hero,     dances,     236;     his     wife 
Rachael,   290;   member   of  Ten- 
nessee   Convention,    363. 
Jaudenes,   Spanish  Minister,  373. 
Jay,     John,     peace     treaty,     332; 
sent    to    make    treaty,    353;    to 
Spain,    358;    in    Spain,    372. 
Jefferson,       Thomas,       approves 
Clark's    plans,    269;    favors  war 
then  bribery,  339;  on  policy  of 
Bribery,     341;     instructions     to 
Spanish,      Miss,      affairs,      373; 
tells     of      Randolph's     slaves, 
380;    porcupine   policy,   385;   our 
greatest   politician,    385;    warns 
France,    386;    insincere,    387;    In 
regard   to   Spanish   aggression, 
289,  290;  his  uppermost  thought, 
390. 
Jesuits,    quarrel    with    Fronten- 
ac,  29,   30;   send  Iroquois  to  de- 
stroy   La    Salle's    fort,    39;    in 
New  Orleans,   106. 
Johnson,    Capt.    George,   to  take 
possession  of  territory  east  of 
the    Mississippi,    205. 
Johnson.     Sir     William,     treaty 

with    Indians,    182. 
Johnson.   Sir  John,  letter  to  Jo- 
seph Brant.  334. 
Joliet,    Louis,    sent    to    explore 
Miss.    River,    14;    Father   Mar- 
quette   was     chaplain     of    the 
expedition.    15,    16;    among    Il- 
linois   Indians,    18,    19  ;■    turna 
toward   home,   23;    route  home, 
24;   loses  papers,  24. 
Joncaire,    at,  post    on    Niagara 
River,    122;    receives    Washing- 
ton, 136. 
Jones,  John  Paul,  writes  Rank, 

322;  as  a  fighter,  324. 
Joutel   tells   of   La   Salle,   48. 
Juchereau,    a    trader,    at    Cairo, 

111.,  63. 
Jumonville,    Ensign    Coulon    de, 

fought  by  Washington,  139. 
Justice,    frontier,    202;    to   inferi- 
or    race,     311;     Deckhard-rifle 
kind,   356. 
Kankakee    River,    La    Salle    at, 

Kaskaskia,  111.,  established,  69; 
becomes  parish.  108;  college  at, 
108;    Clark  reaches,    270,    271. 

Kentucky.  first  cargo  from 
down  Miss.,  198;  "dark  and 
bloody  ground,"  204;  settlers 
described,  207;  early  homes  in 
described,  230;  organizing  set- 
tlers. 258;  raided,  264;  suffers 
at  Blue  Licks,  311;  first  Court 
House  and  Jail,  325;  loyalty, 
371;  Spanish  in.  373;  popula- 
tion, (1790-lSOO).  380;  Kentucky 
River  settled,  208;  first  women 


in,  240;  first  legislature  in, 
244;  sporting  blood,  244;  first 
race  course,  244;  early  life  in, 
245;  cause  of  rapid  growth, 
250;  divided  into  three  coun- 
ties, 325;  progress  in,  325; 
raids  after  the  war,  325;  re- 
inforces Wayne,  349;  restless- 
ness in,  356;  to  make  a  Govt., 
359;  Kentucky  joins  the  Union, 
361;  history  of,  doleful  read- 
ing. 367. 

King's  Mountain  fight,  311;  et 
seq. 

Kingston,  Canada,  then  Catara- 
qui,  27;  a  trading  station,  27, 
29;  traflac  of  lakes  begins  at, 
30;  vessels  at,  30;  value  to  La 
Salle,   30;  base  of  war,  30. 

Knight,  Dr.  John,  on  Craw- 
ford's raid,  304;  captured, 
306;    escapes,    307. 

L'Anse  de  la  Graisse,   Missouri, 

La   Beuf,    Pa.,  attack  on,   175. 
Laclede,  Pierre  Liqueste,  founds 

St.   Louis,   162. 
Lafayette,   Ind..   site  of.   111. 
La    Freniere,    of    New    Orleans, 

arrested,    165;    executed,   166. 
Langlade,   Charles,   leads  attack 

on  Old  Britains  Indians,  132. 
La    Mott,    La    Salle's    assistant, 

fort  builder,  31. 
La  Salle.  Rene  Robert  Cavalier, 
Sieur  de,  origin,  8;  establish- 
es frontier  trading  station,  8; 
hears  about  the  Great  River, 
9;  fails  to  find  China,  10;  into 
Great  Valley,  via  lake  Michi- 
gan, 11;  Frontenac  befriends, 
26,  27;  other  traders  hate,  30; 
builds  fort  at  Niagara,  31; 
voyage  on  upper  lakes,  32;  et 
seq.;  origin  of  troubles  with 
coureurs  de  bois,  35;  builds 
fort  Crevecoeur,  36;  sends 
Hennepin  to  Miss.  River.  37; 
loss  of  ship  Griffin,  38;  enmity 
of  Jesuits.  39;  not  afraid  of  a 
comet,  40;  tells  of  profits  in 
Indian  trade,  41;  down  the 
Miss.  River.  43;  claims  the 
Great  "Valley  for  France,  44; 
expedition  to  Gulf  of  Mexico, 
45,  et  seq.;  in  Texas,  46,  et  seq.; 
murdered.  49. 
Laussatt.  Pierre  Clement,  civil 
governor  at  New  Orleans,  397. 
Law,  John,  takes  hold  of  Louis- 
iana, 70;  described,  70;  floats 
the  Mississippi  Co.  71;  his 
Company  beeins  work  in  Val- 
ley, 103. 
Laws,  first  in  Kentucky,  244. 
Lead  ore,  a  profit  on,  63;  found. 


409 


Index. 


Lemos,  see  Gayoso. 

Levee,  first  built  to  hold  the 
Miss.  River  to  course,  106. 

Lewis,  Gen.  Andrew,  his  for- 
ces at  battle  of  Point  Pleas- 
ant, 218. 

Lexington,  Ky.,  named  in  stir- 
ring fashion,  246. 

Limestone,  Ky.,  (Maysville), 
when  a  tough  town,  326. 

Linn,  Lieutenant,  married,  263; 
voyage  up  the  Miss.,  288. 

Little  Turtle,  whips  St.  Clair,  340. 

Livingston,  Robert  R.,  Jeffer- 
son writes  to,  386;  tries  to  pur- 
chase Louisiana,  388;  said 
"only  force  can  give  us  New 
I  Orleans,"  393;  buys  Louisiana, 
394. 

Lochry,  Col.  Archibald,  com- 
mand destroyed,  322. 

Logan,  Indian  Chief,  family  at- 
tacked, 215;  starts  on  War 
Path,   217;    famous  speech,  222. 

Logan,  Benjamin,  a  Kentucky 
^olonel.  325;  raids  Indians.  335. 

"Log  Rolling,"    described,  235. 

Lomas  Lumsford.  191. 

Losantiville,  afterward  Cincin- 
nati, 339. 

Losses  of  the  forces  on  both 
sides  in  Indian  wars,  179,  180. 

Louisburg  captured,  151. 

Louisiana,  named,  44;  colony  in, 
described,  61  et  seq. ;  Inten- 
dant's  business  in,  61;  Indians 
threaten,  63;  starvation  in,  63; 
Crozat  in  charge  of.  64;  popu- 
lation of,  66,  166;  state  of.  55, 
115;  trade  in,  167;  Spain  ac- 
quires, 162;  French  home  life  in, 
241;  Napoleon  secures.  384  et 
seq:  Americans  to  buy,  390; 
purchased  by  Americans,  394; 
formal  work  of  transfer,  396, 
397. 

Louisville,  La  Salle  reaches,  10; 
founded.  207;    fort  at,  321. 

Louis  XIV,  acquires  pre-emption 
rights  in  Miss.  Valley,  44; 
smiles  on  La  Salle,  45,  46. 

Louis  XV,  inherits  bankrupt 
nation,  70. 

Luzerne,    French   envoy   sent   to 

support    Spanish   claim,    358. 
Lvman,      General     Phineas,      at 
Natchez,  205;    land  grant  to,  207. 

Lvnch  law  on  Frontier,  203,  211. 
Lythe,    Rev.   John,   at  primitive 

Legislature,   244. 
Madison,      James,      indicates     a 
salutary    precedent,    359;    letter 
to  Washington,   386. 
Mailed  fist,  290. 
Marietta,     Ohio,    Indian    mound 

at,   85;   built.  337. 
Marbois,     Barbe,     notes     condi- 

A 


tions  in  America,  391;  conducts 
negotiations  for  sale  of  Louis- 
iana, 394. 

Marin,  Pierre  Paul,  Sieur  de, 
leads  expedition,  134,  135. 

Marin,  Iberville's  ship,  53. 

Marquette,  Father,  claims  as 
a  discoverer  considered,  15,  et 
seq. ;  Joutel  belittles,  20;  his 
account  of  Joliet's  expedition, 
24;    at   St.   Ignace,   16. 

Martin's  Station,  Ky.,  taken, 
290. 

Mascoso,  Luis  de,  leads  rem- 
nants of  De  Soto's   band,   161. 

Mason,  George,  approves 
Clark's  expedition  to  the  Il- 
linois, 268. 

Massacre  Island,  named,  54. 

Matagorda  Bay,  supposed  land- 
ing place  of  La  Salle,  46;  fort 
raided  by  Spanish,  49. 

Maurepas,   Lake  named,   55. 

Maurepas,  a  French  statesman 
and  writer,  56. 

Mayo,  Col.  William,  surveyor, 
124. 

Maysville,  Ky.,  326. 

McAfee,  James,  George  and 
Robert,  208. 

McConnel,  brings  news  of  war, 
246;  killed,  263. 

McCulloch,  Major  Samuel,  at 
Wheeling,  261. 

McGary,  Mrs.,  one  of  women 
at  Boonesborough,  240. 

McGarry,  Major  Hugh,  bully, 
at  Blue  Licks,   310. 

McGillivry,  Alexander,  leads 
Indians,   363. 

McKee,  Alexander,  renegade, 
305;  store  destroyed,  352. 

Medicine  men,  95. 

Memphis,   Tenn.,    fort  at,   373. 

Mercier,  Father  Francois  le, 
leads  expedition  to  Iroquois 
country,    8. 

Meskousing,  now  Wisconsin 
river,  17. 

Miami,  Mich.,  La  Salle's  fort 
in.  36  Abnekis  flee  to,  40;  a 
British  fort  on  Maumee  River, 
347. 

Michigan,  region  west  of  visited 
by  Nicolet,  4;  La  Salle  sends 
men  to,  31. 

Milhet,  John  and  Joseph,  ar- 
rested,  165. 

Mingo  Bottom,  Ohio,  raiders 
gather  at.  299. 

Minor,  Don  Stephen,  at  Nat- 
chez,  376;   sneaks   away,   377. 

Miro,  Gov.,  Don  Estevan,  at 
New  Orelans,  363;  urges  In- 
dians to  war,  364;  does  not 
enthuse  over  American  sub- 
jects,   370;    transferred,    371. 

TO 


Index. 


Mississippi  Company,  floated,  71; 
land  granted  to,  112;  begins 
work,  103;  leaves  Louisiana,  114. 

Mississippi  Territory  organized, 
379;  kind  of  people  that  went 
to.  3S0. 

Mississippi  River  first  seen,  1; 
the  search  for,  5,  7,  9,  14,  17; 
visited  by  Grosseilliers  and 
Radisson,  7;  first  written  men- 
tion by  name,  8;  discovered 
and  described,  14;  Indians  on, 
19,  21;  boats  on,  22;  La  Salle 
plants  forts  along,  31;  Iber- 
ville finds.  54;  De  Soto  raid 
to,  157,  et  seq.;  mouth  dis- 
covered, 161;  navigation  free 
to  British,  167;  bids  for  settlers 
on  lower,  205;  closed  to  Brit- 
ish, 287-288;  Spanish  claim  to, 
358;  Spanish  close,  359;  efforts 
to  open,  362;  Franklin's  view 
of,  385. 

Mississippi  Valley,  Marquette 
describes,  24;  La  Salle's  plans 
to  acquire,  37;  claimed  for 
France,  44;  life  in  old  valley, 
55;  Law's  descriptions  of,  71; 
French  in  during  18th  Century, 
125;  English  gain  eastern 
watershed,  155;  war  losses  in, 
180;  British  life  in,  184;  s  ttlers 
in  lower,  207;  prosperity  in  ac- 
cording to  kind  of  people,  242, 
322;  explorations  in,  337;  Span- 
ish in,  363;  movement  to  Ameri- 
canize, 370;  Spain  opens,  374; 
Americans  get  their  own  in, 
377-378;  France  buys  part  of, 
383;  prosperity  of  in  1802,  388; 
purchased,  395-396;  tlie  Flag 
over  all,  401. 

Missouri,    mines   in,   68. 

Missojuri  River,  reached  by  Joli- 
et,  20;  described,  20;  small  fort 
on,  63. 

Mitchegamea.   a  village.   22. 

Mobile  Bay,  visited,  named  and 
colonized,  60;  traders  go  to 
New  Orleans.  106. 

Spanish  take,  2S9. 

Money,    Continental,   321. 

Monroe,  James,  appointed  to 
make  treaty,  390;  buys  Louisi- 
ana. 394. 

Monso,  Indian  chief,  enemy  of 
La   Salle,  36. 

Monsters  on  Mississippi,  16,  18, 
20;  whirl-pool,  21. 

Montcalm,  Gozon  de  Saint  Ver- 
an,  Louis  Joseph,  Marquis  de, 
describes    Indian    doings,   149. 

Montreal,   Que.,   frontier  post,  8. 

Morales,  Don  Juan  Venturo, 
breaks  treaty,  388. 

Morgan,  Col.  George,  gets  Span- 
ish grant,  367. 


Mooney,  James,  198;  meets  In- 
dians, 219. 

Morals,  Indian,  93;  French,  113, 
114,  116. 

Moravian  Missionaries,  deeds, 
9S;  and  Ohio  Indians,  216;  the 
story  of,  293;  human  wolves 
among,  300;   saw  justice,  311. 

Mounds,  Indian,  85;  saloon  in. 
one,  86. 

Moyne,  Charles  le,  52. 

Moyne,  Father  le,  speech  to 
Indians,  100. 

Muskingum  River,  Ohio.  Chris- 
tian  settlements   on,   294. 

Napoleon,  power  in  France,  38^; 
idea  of  the  Miss.  Valley,  388; 
gets  the  true  facts,  391;  says 
the  right  thing,  392;  and  does 
it,  394;  creates  "a  British 
rival,"  393. 

Nashborough,  Tenn..  govern- 
ment and   life  at.  291. 

Nashville.    Tenn..   68,   290. 

Natchez,  Miss.,  (Rosalie)  found- 
ed, 68,  113;  wiped  out  by  In- 
dians, 113;  Gen.  Lyman  and 
families  emigrate,  to,  2  0  5; 
grants  of  land  at,  207;  garri- 
son at,  288;  taken,  2S9,  359; 
str-iggle  to  hold,  369;  Ellicott 
and  Spanish  at,  376;  seized  by 
citizens,  376;  Spanish  leave, 
American  at  last,  377. 

Natchez  Indians  meet  La  Salle, 
44;  in  a  panic  over  storm,  59; 
see  IndiTn  summary,  76  et  seq. 

Natchitoches,  fort  at,  68-69;  colo- 
nists a  ,  103. 

"Natural  rights,"  357. 

Nau,  Father,  on  "sea  of  bea- 
ver," 121. 

Nautilus,  ship's  captain  held, 
348. 

Neely,  Alexander,  goes  home, 
199. 

Nemacolin.   blazes  trail,  190. 

New  Hampshire,  adopts  Consti- 
tution.  362. 

New  Madrid,  Missouri,  post  at. 
110;   land  grant  at,   367. 

New  Orleans,  La.,  founded,  72- 
74;  Law's  colonists  at,  104; 
Bienville  af.  106;  Ursuline  Nuns 
at,  106;  described  by  Sister 
Hochard,  107;  trade  freed,  114; 
ceded  to  Spain,  by  FYench,  1.55; 
transferred.  163;  O'Reily  at. 
165;  population.  166;  ship  load 
of  flour  at,  168;  manners  at, 
170;  smugglers  in,  206;  Jack- 
son at.  236;  British  ships  seized 
at,  287;  free  to  Americans  by 
treaty.  374;  customs  receipts 
doubled.  382;  Jefferson  on,  386; 
ceded  to  U.  S.,  393;  ceremonies 
of  cession,  398. 


411 


Index. 


New  York  free  of  raids,  122. 

Nicolet,  Jean,  Joins  Cliamplain, 
3;  life  among  Indians,  3;  ex- 
plores Lake  Michigan  region, 
4,  5. 

Nika,  Indian  companion  of  La 
Salle,  murdered,  48. 

Nolan,   Philip,   killed,   381. 

North  Carolina  cedes  lands  to 
Congress,  361;  resumes  control, 
362,   adopts   Constitution,  362. 

Oconee  War,  363. 

O'Fallon,  Dr.  James,  in  the  Val- 
ley,  370. 

Ogden,   Amos,   land   grant,   207. 

Ohio  Company,  formed,  189  et 
seq.j   absorbed,   195. 

Ohio  River,  (La  Belle  Rivierre, 
Ouabouskigou),  La  Salle  vis- 
its, 11;  La  Salle  passes  mouth 
on  Miss.,  21;  road  to  forks  of, 
124;  Valley  claimed  by  Celor- 
on,  128;  fort  at  forks  of  be- 
gun, 138;  Wheeling  head  of 
deep  water  navigation,  204; 
400  families  down  in  1773.  205; 
desperadoes  along,  211;  people 
in  the  valley,  224,  236,  321;  dan- 
ger in,  322;  slavery  in,  3  3  7; 
north  side  opened  to  settlers, 
353;  type  of  people  in,  380. 

Old  Britain.  Indian  chief.  129; 
at  Piqua,  or  Pickawillany,  136; 
defeated  and  eaten,  132;  for- 
gotten,   135. 

O'Reilly,  Don  Alexandre,  at 
New  Orleans,  165;  and  Pollock, 
168;  sails  away,  168. 

Oswald.  Richard,  treaty  maker, 
331;    far-sighted    perhaps,    370. 

Oswego,  N.  Y.,  founded,  122; 
captuied,   151. 

Ouabouskigou,   see  Ohio  river. 

Ouiatanon,  Ind.,  now  Lafayette, 
111. 

Overture,  Toussainte  1',  at  San 
Domingo,    384. 

Ozarks,  (mountains  in  Missouri), 
De  Soto  at,  160. 

Pepin  Lake,  visited,   60. 

Packet  service  established  on 
the  Ohio,  380. 

Palatines,  the  buffer  settle- 
ments  of,    122. 

Parma,   Duke  of,   385. 

Pean.  Chevalier,  husband  o  f 
Madam  Pean,  134;  makes  mon- 
ey, 154. 

Patton,  James,  191. 

Pearl  fisheries,   sought,  56. 

Pelican,  d'  Iberville's  frigate,  52. 

Penalvert,   Bishop,   170. 

Penisseault.  Maj.  husband  of 
Pean's  mistress,   155. 

Pennsylvania  heard  from,  53; 
quarrels     among     people,     130; 


staked   claims  on  New  River, 

197. 
Pensacola,    Fla.,    taken,   289. 
Peoria     Lake,     reached,     by     La. 

Salle,   43. 
Perier,    Governor    of    Louisiana, 

burns  Indians,  114. 
Petit,    Father    le,    in    regard    to 

Indians,  95. 
Petroleum,    spring    described   by 

priest,  8. 
Peyster,    Arent    Schuyler   de,    at 

Detroit,  289. 
Picture     Rocks,     first     seen     by 

whites,    20;    described   by   Mar- 
quette,   20;    Joutel   at,    20-21. 
Pickawillany,     or    Piqua  towns, 

130;     English    win    Indians    at,       ^ 

139:   raided  by  Clark,  290. 
Pineda,  Don  Alonzo  de,  at  mouth 

of    Miss.,    161. 
Pinchon,  on  Jefferson  and  U.  S. 

people,  391. 
Pinckney,    Thomas,   373. 
Pipe,     Captain,     in     Crawford's 

raid,   305,   306. 
Piquet,  Abbe,   causes  raids,  101. 
Pittsburg,     region     claimed     b  y 

French.  137;  Wayne  at,  344.. 
Plet,    Francois,    lends    La    Salle 

money,    31. 
Point  Pleasant,  (at  the  junction 

of  Ohio  River  and  Great  Kana- 
wha), battle  of,  218. 
Poisson,     Father    du,     describes 

people  and  country,  112. 
Pollock,    Oliver,    flour   deal,    168; 

a  patriot  martyr,  285;  permitted 

to  send  supplies  up  Miss.,  288; 

gives  good  advice,  288. 
Pompadour,      Madam,      angered 

by  Maurepas,  56;  true  ruler  of 

France,  142;  result  of  her  rule, 

155-156. 
Ponchartrain,  Lake,  named,  55. 
Pontiac,   his  war,  171.  179;  meets 

Croghan,  192;  makes  peace,  193. 
Pope    Lieut.   Piercy  S.,  with  El- 

licott,  375. 
Porcupine  Policy,  385. 
Portage    City,    Wis.,    on   the   old 

carry.  17. 
Post,  Charles  Frederick,  sent  to 

Ohio    Indians,    152;    secures 

peace,  153. 
Potomac    River,    cabin   on  head 

of,    123. 
Potter,  John,  gives  good  advice, 

151. 
Poupet,  W.,  merchant,  arrested, 

165. 
Powell.    Major   J.    W.,    best  au- 
thority on  Indian.  101. 
Prairie  du  Rocher,  111.,  110. 
Presbyterian     Church,      Doak's, 

320,   362. 


412 


Index. 


Prescott,  Gen.  Richard,  at  New- 
port, 251. 

Presqu'  Isle,  (Erie,  Pa.),  134.  175. 

Prestonburg,  Ky.,  site  of  one  of 
Boone's  camps,  198. 

Price,  Ensign,  escapes  Indians, 
175. 

Priestly,  Dr.  Joseph,  hears 
from  Jefferson.  391. 

Prisoners  burned  at  New  Or- 
leans  by   French.   114. 

Prudhomme,  Pierre,  lost  a  t 
Chickasaw  Bluffs,  44. 

Puritans,  drive  out  Abenakis, 
40. 

Putnam,  Gen.  Rufus,  home 
maker,    336. 

Quakers,  send  Post  to  Indians, 
152;  and  Pontiac's  war,  173;  and 
Moravian  Indians,  294;  saw 
justice,  311. 

Quapaw.  Indians,  22;  their  fate, 
23-  seen  through  a  real  estate 
dealer's  eyes,  88;  and  De  Soto's 
band,   161. 

Quebec,  founded  by  Champlam, 
2-  its  trade,  destroyed  by  Iro- 
quois, 6;  La  Salle  goes  to,  9;  its 
traders  cowardly,   10. 

Quebec  Bill,  196.  249. 

Quindre.  Daigniau  de,  attacks 
Boonesborough,  264. 

Race  Course  at  Shallow  Ford 
Station,   244.  . 

Radisson,  Pierre  Esprit,  (with 
Grosseilliers),  5;  final  word  as 
to.  400.  „     ^ 

Randolph,  Edmund,  Sec.  State, 
373. 

Ray.  James,  saves  Harrodsburg, 
262.  ^      , 

Raymond,  Commandantoi 
French   post   on   Maumee,   131. 

Red  Hawk   murdered,   266. 

Red   River,    fortified,   68. 

Red  Stone  Old  Fort.  Pa.,  326. 

Renault.  Philip  Francois,  founds 

Galena,    111.,    108.  ^       ^ 

Richebourg,      Capt.,     profligate. 

Riddle's  Station,  Ky.,  taken,  290. 

Riflemen,  Prime.  258;  at  King's 
Mountain.  315-317;  not  desirable 
Spanish  subjects,  370. 

Rio  Grande,  Spanish  name  Of 
Mississippi,    160. 

Road,  first  wagon  into  the  Great 
Valley,  139. 

Robertson.  James,  goes  over  the 
range,  2O0;  leads  party  to  Wa- 
tauga Riv..  201;  fights  at  Point 
Pleasant.  219;  at  Watauga,  257; 
goes  into  the  woods,  290;  sees 
need  of  settlement,  327;  ready 
to  join  Spanish,  328;  helps 
make  Tennessee  a  state,  363; 
and  the  Spanish,  366, 

41 


Rocheblave,  a  French  officer  in 
the  British  service  at  Kaskas- 
kia,   270,   272. 
Rogers,     Major     Robert,     meets 

Pontiac,    173. 
Rosalie,  (Natchez)  attacked,  113. 
Rosenthal,     Baron     de,     (John 
Rose),  on  Crawford's  raid.  306. 
St.    Anthony,    bribed   by   Henne- 
pin. 32. 
St.    Clair.    Gen.    Arthur,    arrests 
Connelly,  212;  at  Marietta,   338; 
to  fight   Indians,.  339;   sick  and 
defeated,  340. 
St.    Francis    River,    22. 
St.     Genevieve,     Mo.,     founded, 

111. 
St.  Joseph,  Ind.,  Kankakee  por- 
tage, 111. 
St.     Louis,     Mo.,     founded,     162; 
riot    at,     164;     population    1769, 
166;    attacked,    318. 
Saint-Lusson,  Daumont  de,  sent 
to   lake   Superior  after  copper, 
14;     takes     possession     of     the 
West,  14. 
St.  Phillippe,  110. 
St.    Pierre   Legardeur   de,   at  Le 

Boeuf,  136. 
Salem,     (Ohio)    established,    294; 

Indians   enticed,    300. 
San  Domingo,  French  in,  384. 
Sandusky,    Ohio,    Moravians   at, 

298. 
Sandusky  Bay,  Lake  Erie,  trade 

post  on,   123. 
Sargent.    Winthrop,   to  organize 

territorv,   379. 
Sault    Saint    Marie,    taken    into 

French  possession,  14. 
Sauville,  Sieur  de,   57. 
Savannah.   Ga.,   captured,  313. 
Scalps   bought,   101;    reward    for, 
151,    253;    on    Pittsburg   streets, 
303. 
Schebosch,    an    Indian,    chopped 

to   pieces,    300. 
Schoonbrum,    Ohio,     established 

by  Moravians,  294. 
Scotch-ilrish      Presbyterians     in 

Delaware    224. 
Seneca     Indians,     in     Pontiac  s 

War,  175. 
Sevier,  John,  on  the  frontier, 
257;  at  King's  Mountain,  315; 
to  organize  a  state  wast  of 
Alleghanies,  361;  fugitive  from 
justice.  362;  willing  to  join 
Spanish,  366. 
Shallow  Ford  Station,    had   first 

race  course  in  Kentucky,  244. 
Shelbv.    Isaac,   Gov.   of  Ken.,   at 

Point    Pleasant,    221. 
Shelby,    Capt.    Evan.    218;    saves 
day  at  Point  Pleasant,  220;  at 
King's  Mountain,  315. 


Index. 


Shelbourne,  Lord,  prefers  Ameri- 
can neighbors,  332. 

Sherrill,  Kate,  escapes  Indians, 
marries   Sevier,   257. 

Ship  Island,  in  Gulf  of  Mexico, 
settled,   60. 

Short,  William,  commissioner  to 
negotiate  treaty  with  Spain, 
373." 

Simcoe,  Lieut.  Gov.  John 
Graves,  invades  U.  S.,  347;  re- 
sponsible for  Indian  sufferings, 
349. 

Simcoe,  Lake,  on  one  route  to 
Georgian  Bay,    43. 

Sinclair,  Lt.  Gov.,  sends  to  take 
St.   Louis,   318. 

Sioux,  (Nation  of  the  Ox),  visi- 
ted by  Grosseilliers  and  Radis- 
son,  7. 

Slaves,  first  large  importation 
into  Louisana,  104;  in  New 
Orleans,   166. 

Slover,    John.   308. 

Smallpox,  among  Indians,  curi- 
ous case,  291. 

Smugglers,  206. 

Smith,  James,  at  Ft.  Duquesne, 
143;  describes  Braddock's  de- 
feat,  146. 

Soldiers,  La  Salle's  best  of  the 
day,  30;  Bienville  describes, 
116;   a  mutiny  among,  116. 

South  Bend,  Ind.,  site  of  Fort 
Miami,  36. 

South   Carolina   Company,    370. 

South  Sea,  search  for,  15;  In- 
dians tell  of  a  tributary  of,  21. 

Spencer  first  settled  at  Nash- 
ville,   Tenn.,   290. 

Spirit  of  the  American  Nation, 
186. 

Spotswood,  Gov.,  claims  the 
West  for  English,  75. 

Stanwix,    Fort,    treaty  of,   209. 

Starved  Rock,   Fort  on,   45. 

Station  Camp  Creek,  K  y., 
Boone's  skin  hunters  camp 
on,  198. 

Stephen.  Adam,  141. 

Sterling,  Capt.,  takes  possession 
of  Fort  Chartresfor  British,  207. 

Stephens,  a  trader,  attack  on 
his   canoe  by  Cresap,   213. 

Stoddart,  Capt.  Benjamin,  tella 
of   French  expedition,   134. 

Stony  Point,   the  hero  of,  342. 

Strachey,  British  commissioner, 
in,  1783,  found  peace-making 
sad.  333. 

Strobo,  Robert,  an  American 
prisoner  in  Fort  Duquesne,  143. 

Stuart.  John,  with  Boone,  198; 
bones  found,  199. 

Stump  speeches,   327. 

Suffolk,  Earl  of,  advises  tor- 
ture,  253. 


La  Sueur  comes  to  Louisiana, 
59;   reaches  Lake  Pepin,  60. 

Lake  Superior   visited,   3. 

Sugar,  introduction  of  manufac- 
turing,  168. 

Sylph,  warship  at  Manchac,  288. 

Symmes,  John  Cleve,  settles 
Cincinnati,  O.,  338;  on  St. 
Clair's  troops    343. 

Talon,  Jean  Baptiste,  "Inten- 
dant"  of  Canada,  determines 
to  spread  French  power,  9 
chooses  La  Salle  to  do  it,  11 
sees  value  of  the  West,  13 
sends  Daumont  de  Salnt-Lus- 
son  to  Lake  Superior  to  hunt 
copper,  13-14;  chooses  Joliet 
to  head  Miss,  expedition,  14. 

Taylor,  Hancock,  208. 

Tea  Party,   247. 

Tennessee,  state  building,  361; 
troubles  of,  361-362;  state  made, 
363;  population,  of  (1790-1800), 
380. 

Tomahawk  claim,  204. 

Tonti,  Henry  de,  La  Salle's  as- 
sistant, 32;  reports  mutiny  at 
Fort  Crevecoeur,  39;  La  Salle 
describes,  43;  goes  to  Gulf  in 
canoe,   55-59. 

Todd.   Col.,   at    Blue   Licks,   310. 

Toronto,  La  Salle  in  its  harbor, 
43;   trading  station  at,   122. 

Traders,  daring,  1;  jealousy 
and  cowardice,  10;  sneer  at 
good  work,  11;  their  one 
thought,  82;  when  traders 
came  to  Indian  camps,  99; 
stock  in  trade,  110;  British 
traders,  123;  British  attacked 
in  Valley,  125;  scalps  of,  135; 
English  traders  at  New  Or- 
leans, 166-167;  British  and  In- 
dians, 172;  at  Vincennes,  192; 
helped  by  Indians,  217;  in 
peace  treaty,  333;  Spanish  tra- 
ders' goods  seized,  335. 

Transylvania  Company,  225,  243, 
245. 

Treaty  and  treaties— C  h  a  m  p- 
lain's  with  Iroquois,  2;  Nico- 
let's  at  Sault  Sainte  Marie,  4; 
Joliet  with  Illinois,  19;  Joliet 
with  Quapaws,  23;  Frontenac 
with  Iroquois,  28;  English  and 
F'rench.  155;  by  Sir  William 
Johnson.  182;  at  Logston,  191; 
at  Fort  Stanwix,  193,  209;  with 
Cherokees,  194,  203,  204;  by 
Dunmore,  221;  Boone's  at  Syca- 
more Shoals,  225;  at  end  of 
American  Rev.,  331;  at  Fort 
Finney,  335;  Jay's  with  Eng- 
land, 358;  U.  S.  and  England, 
358,  372;  with  Spain.  374;  of 
Amiens.  388;  for  purchase  of 
Louisiana,  394-396. 


414 


Index. 


Trent,    "William,   with   Washingr- 
ton,  on  expedition  to  build  fort 
at  the  forks  of  the  Ohio.  138. 
Trigg,    Col.,   killed,    Blue   Lacks, 

310. 
Trinity    River,    Texas,    reached 
by  La  Salle,  48. 

Trudeau,  Zenon,  grants  Boone 
Land  in  Missouri,   38L 

Tryon,  Governor,  revolt  against, 
202. 

Twitty,   Capt..  killed,  226. 

Two  Oceans  Creek,  21. 

Union,  as  dry  wall,  360;  loose 
conglomerate   solidifying,   362. 

Unzaga.  Louis  de.  in  charge  at 
New  Orleans,  168;  marries 
FVench  lady,  169;  permitted 
British  ships  at  New  Orleans, 
288 

Utica,  111.,  site  of  La  Salle's  fort, 
45. 

Ursuline  Nuns  open  School  at 
New  Orleans.  106;  Sister 
Hochard's  description  of  New 
Orleans.  106;  Spanish  Ursuline 
Nuns,    169. 

Ulloa,  Don  Antonio  de,  at  New 
Orleans.   163,    et  seq. 

Van  Braam.  "Washingrton's  in- 
terpreter,   140-141. 

Vandalia.  a  proposed  colony 
west  of  Alleghanies,  195;  In- 
dians  disappointed.   217. 

Vaudreuil,  Marquis  de,  succeeds 
Bienville,  at  New  Orleans,  115; 
raids    the   English,    121. 

Venango,  Pa.,  French  start 
from.  138. 

Vente.  Curate  de  la,  a  priest 
leader,  62. 

Vergennes,  Count  Charles  Gra- 
vier  de,  French  Minister,  atti- 
tude toward   U.   S.,   357. 

Victor,  Gen.  Claude  Perrin,  in 
command  of  a  force  that  was 
to  conquer  Miss.  Valley,  388. 

Vigo,  Francois,  fate  of  a  good 
American,  285. 

Villier,  arrested  at  New  Orleans 
for  treason.  165;  Madam  Vil- 
lier, her  bed  room  described.  166. 

Villiers,  Coulon  de,  attacks 
Washington,  140;  bums  fort 
Grandville,    150. 

Vincennes.  Ind.,  established.  112; 
the  French  at,  192;  surrenders 
to  Clark,  274. 

Virginians,  with  Braddock.  145; 
Dunmore's  Virginians,  218;  as 
"Long  Knives."  265. 

Virginia,  thanks  Clark,  284; 
grants  Kentuckv's  demands, 
361;  adopts  Constitution,  .362. 

Wabash  River.  French  on.  111 
et  seq,;  Croghan  visits,  191-192; 


British  raid  down,  275;  Clark's 
work  along,  277  et  seq. 

Wabasha,   Sioux  Chief,   318. 
Waddell,     Capt.     Hugh,     Leads 
expedition    against    Cherokees, 
198. 

Wages,   frontier,  51,  245. 

Walker,  Dr.  Thomas,  124; 
reaches  head  of  Cumberland, 
189. 

Walker,    Felix,   wounded,   226. 

Walnut  Hills,  (V  i  c  k  s  b  u  r  g, 
Miss.),    Spanish  leave,   377. 

Walpole  grant,  195. 

Ward,  John,  198. 

Ward,  Nancy,  squaw,  saves 
woman,   256. 

Ward.  Ensign,  begins  fort  at 
Forks   of   Ohio,    138. 

Washington.  George,  sent  to 
French  in  Ohio,  136;  sent  to 
Will's  Creek,  with  militia.  138; 
whips  Jumonville,  139;  attacked 
by  Villiers.  140;  surrenders,  141; 
covers  Braddock's  retreat.  146; 
remembered  twenty  years 
later,  147;  as  to  King's  Proc- 
lamation. 187;  in  the  Ohio  Val- 
ley, 196;  on  St.  Clair's  Expedi- 
tion, 339;  describes  Wayne, 
343;  wisdom  of.  359;  and  South 
Carolina  Company.  370;  de- 
feats French  plans  for  raid 
down    Miss.    Valley,    372. 

Washington  College,  Tenn., 
founded,   320. 

Watauga,  Tenn.,  settlements,  a 
no-man's-land.  201  et  seq.;  In- 
dians  in,    2,55-256. 

Waterford,  Pa.,  (fort  La  Beuf), 
134,  175. 

Wayne,  General  "Mad  An- 
thony." 341;  Washington  de- 
scribes. 345;  his  men.  343-344; 
as  the  right  man,  348;  destroys 
Indian  corn,  349;  at  Fallen 
Timbers,  350;  his  title  "Mad 
Anthony,"  etc.,  351;  garrisons 
Fort  Massac,  372;  salutary  ex- 
ample,  391. 

Wetzel,  Lewis,  borderer,  328; 
and  his  rifle,  344. 

Wheeling  Creek,  the  Z  a  n  e  s 
come  to,  204;  Dunmore's  war 
begins  at,  213;  attacked,  260; 
whiskey  at,  325. 

Whiskev.  first  export  of  K  e  n- 
tucky.  325. 

Wilderness  road.  226. 

Wilkinson,  James,  infamous 
traitor,  285,  360;  and  Spanish. 
364-365;  and  Connolly.  3  6  7; 
recommends  O'Fallon,  370;  and 
Gayoso.  374;  sends  Guion  to 
take  U.  S.  Territory,  from 
Spanish,  377;  at  Louisiana 
transfer,  398. 


415 


Index. 


Williamson,  Col.  David,  de- 
scribed, 299;  in  Crawford's  raid, 
304. 

Willing,    Clark's    Gunboat,    277. 

Whitney  cotton  gin,   380. 

Winnebago  lake,  Wis.,  the 
Country  south  and  west  of,  17. 

Wisconsin  (Meskousing)  River, 
Joliet  reaches,  17. 

Wolf  Hills  fort,   gets  scalps,  257. 

Wolf,  Gen.  James,  at  Louisburg, 
151;   at  Quebec,   154,   155. 

Women,  adventurers,  on  Miss. 
River,  113;  home  of  wealthy  in 
New  Orleans,  166;  first  in  Ken- 
tucky,  240. 

Wythe,    George,    a  Virginia 


patriot,  approves  Clark's  plan 
to   invade  Illinois,  268. 

Yazoo,  Miss.,  Colonists  at,  104; 
Fraud,  373, 

Yellow  Creek  Massacre,  215. 

Yoder,  Jacob,  early  whiskey 
dealer,    325. 

Zane,  Ebenezer,  Silas  and  Jona- 
than, to  Wheeling,  204;  their 
followers,  210;  one  of  them 
kills  a  big  buffalo,  237;  at  the 
attack  on  Wheeling,  261;  Jona^ 
than,  guide  for  Crawford's 
raid,   304. 

Zeisberger,  David,  Moravian, 
missionary,   216. 

Zinc  Mines,  68. 


416 


UNIVERSITY  OF  ILLINOiS-URBANA 

917.7SP3H  C002 

A  HISTORY  OF  THE  MISSISSIPPI  VALLEY  NEW 


3  0112  025336725 


